What do most of us really know about world conflicts?

Only what we learn through the media. But is the information we receive the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, or something less?

After years spent researching the background and events related to world conflict some disturbing trends have emerged - a media predilection for partial truth, selective memory and strategic omissions. One learns to expect this from governments that “manage” information to present their official positions is the best possible light (i.e. propaganda), but when the free media participates in the management and filtering process, it raises serious concerns. “An Informed citizenry is vital to democracy” said Thomas Jefferson. To have meaning and value, information must be accurate, objective and reasonably complete. Hence, a cornerstone of democracy is freedom of the press and objectivity of the press.

Freedom of the press entails having access to people and events, the ability to collect news and information, as well as the ability to distribute information and our right as citizens to receive the information. In the case of political disputes, violent conflict and war each of these elements is at risk. Indeed, the first casualty of war is truth.

With freedom comes responsibility and challenge. Correspondents are just people, people who invariably must struggle to remain balanced and objective, despite their personal views and often in the face of the most horrible aspects of the human condition. Faced with the tragedies of conflict, it’s difficult to remain a detached observer, though this they’re expected to do. Under pressure to deliver compelling and captivating reports, it’s difficult to resist the temptation to sensationalize, and to maintain access it’s often impossible to avoid compromising one’s reports to satisfy those holding the power of access.

What we hear, read and see on television, or in newspapers and magazines are the accounts of reporters and correspondents that have survived filtering by network and newspaper editors and producers. Networks and publications face their own set of challenges, the requirement for financial performance, the pressure for ratings and readership, as well as the constraining influences of governments, politicians, advertisers and interest groups. Given the myriad of potentially adversarial interests, it’s a wonder we get any real news, and, in fact, this is part of the problem. Collecting foreign news is expensive, especially from war zones where the need for security, travel and mobile infrastructure add significant costs, without corresponding increases in viewers or readership.

The ethical and operational challenges to maintain a press freedom and effective flow of information are enormous. For the news recipient, the task of discerning facts and truth are no less daunting.

OVERVIEW Few professional fields are more diligent in self-examination and self-criticism than journalism. Activities and reporting are continually subjected to industry and peer review in an effort to maintain high journalistic standards. Whether this analysis is actually reflected in the news the public receives is a subject of continuing controversy. The sad truth is that networks, newspapers and other media outlets strive to give the public what it wants. In fact, one of the key issues is whether the media should act as policy advocates and use news coverage to force public awareness and concern.

For example, the media was criticized by some for advocating international intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo, and by others for failing to provoke intervention in Rwanda. It's been faulted equally for providing too much coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and for providing too little. Europeans receive far more extensive coverage of world affairs than do Americans, which ultimately broadens the divide when issues of controversy and disagreement arise.

Following is select group of issues that affect media professionals, the parties to conflict and the general public. When it comes to debates over war and peace, terrorism, conflict resolution and security these issues influence what we know and how our countries act. For some they determine whether they will live or die.

Terrorism and the Media

What’s in a Name? A key objective of any political campaign is publicity, which requires attracting media coverage. Coincidently, there is also the news maxim - "if it bleeds, it leads". Add to these, common government restrictions often denying a political voice to extremists and it’s a recipe for terrorism. Although experts can’t agree on a definition of the word terrorism, there are few media reservations in using the term to demonize opponents.

The journalistic challenge is to avoid using the term indiscriminately, or to apply it equally to any reasonable case where non-combatants are targeted, regardless of whether the violence is perpetrated by a government or militant group. Nonetheless, we hear far less about rebels, guerrillas, freedom fights, extremists, liberation armies, dissidents. insurgents, militants, or subversives, than terrorists. Ttoday virtually all armed, non-governmental actors are condemned by government officials as "terrorists". But what about suicide bombers versus homocide bombers? The term homicide bomber has become subtle code, suggesting support for President Bush's policy views.

Ironically, the term terrorist is almost never applied to governments (or pro-government paramilitaries), which historically claim a monopoly on the “legitimate” use of force, regardless of the terror actually inflicted on non-combatants. In Northern Ireland, for instance, the IRA is almost always referred to as a terrorist group. Violent Loyalists, equally deadly and active, are typically called paramilitaries, not terrorists, even though they have repeatedly terrorized, killed and butchered innocent Catholics and firebombed their homes. Several of the loyalist groups are listed in the US State Departments list of terrorist organizations, yet the media refers to them as paramilitaries.

Meanwhile, a number of Latin American regimes organized paramilitary forces. In actuality many of these are "death squads, " and are reported as such by the media. They're still not called terrorists.

Words do matter. The term terrorist carries a perjorative stigma and is used specifically to de-legitimize, condemn and demonize an organization. Other words used for the same purpose include: Marxist, communist, socialist, leftist, extremist, fascist and radical. When these words appear, it’s wise to be alert for propaganda.

IPI World Press Freedom Review
In The Name Of Terror

The Press Under Fire: Media and Terrorism
Poynter Online

"Terrorism" Is a Term That Requires Consistency:
Newspaper and its critics both show a double standard on "terror"
FAIR Media Advisory

Terrorism & the Domestic "War on Terror"
FAIR Media Advisory

The Propaganda War and the War on Terror
Prof. Philip Taylor

Media and Access

One of the most common ways to control press coverage of conflict and posiible atrocities, or war crimes is to restrict media access to key people and places where events unfold. A more extreme corollary is to threaten, intimidate, kidnap, or kill journalists who venture to places where they aren't welcome.

Algeria is been embroiled in a visciuos conflict since 1992, when Islamic Fundamenatlists won control of government in the country's first election, only to be blocked from assuming power. Since then Islamist rebels have been on a rampage. As much as they hate the unelected secular rulers, their primary targets have been journalists. As a result very little news comes from Algeria.

In the Israeli Occupied Territories of Palestine, journalists are discouraged from entering restricted military zones to cover Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) attacks against the Palestinians, presumably for the protection of the journalists. The IDF is apparently even worse than the Americans at hitting proper targets, having mistakenly shot 45 journalists. In each case, the IDF has called the incidents regrettable.

During the US bombing campaign against Afghanistan a highly touted precision bomb went astray, striking the al-Jazeera (the Arab version of CNN) television facility in Kabul. During the bombing of Iraq, another precision-guided bomb missed its target and, by incredible coincidence, struck the al-Jazeera television facility in Baghdad. Accident or coincidence?

However, the U.S. broke new ground during the Irag War by permitting "embedded journalists" to accompany U.S. Forces during the invasion. This unprecedented program brought the world first-hand images of war, but has also been critized in some quarters for delivering sanitized images and censored reporting, and from others for providing too much information that threatened the safety and security of the soldiers. Walter Cronkite, among others, has applauded the media access in the belief that after the fighting ends, what has been seen and experienced will ultimately be reported and discussed. Without media access, truth, or the many truths may never be known.

The World’s Worst Places to be a Journalist

Rules for Embedded Journalists in the Iraq War

Articles on Media Freedom from International Press Inistitute


Propaganda and the Media

Almost every conflict involves a battle for public opinion, as various adversaries exchange charges and counter charges, seeking to demonize their opponents and build support for their own views, positions and actions - the proverbial war of words. Words and images are powerful weapons. When the smoke clears and guns fall silent, the time comes for a political settlement, but rarely does the propaganda battle end, as opponents continue to maneuver for the best possible outcomes.

The Propaganda War
The Economist

On the Frontline Online
Andrew Stroehlein

For the Full Story Watch Arab & US Television
Rami G. Khouri

Through a Glass, Darkly
Jake Lynch

Propaganda Website

Propaganda and Psychological Warfare Studies

Propaganda in Theory and Practice: How Does It Wok?

Entertainment as Propaganda

Propaganda and Psychological Warfare Studies


Media as Policy Advocates

As witnesses to injustice, suffering, starvation, genocide and warfare,
a common response is to ask, “Why doesn’t someone do something?” Correspondents are in a position to ask this question for all the world to hear, but if they do they cross the boundary between journalism and advocacy. It’s referred to as the CNN effect and has become a topic of
considerable debate. Can and should the media influence governments to intervene?

Kevin Sites and the Blogging Controversy

World in Crisis, Media in Conflict
MediaChannel

Diversity Of Views, Balance & Bias: How Media Take Sides

Photojournalism

Photojournalists are exposed to the most visceral cruelty of war and conflict. Unlike war correspondents photojournalist's images are collected first-hand, right at the site of fighting or of the horrific aftermath. Their images they may not be distributed and published, but they're unedited - they tell it the way it is. Few photojournalists can escape emotional involvement with the lives and struggles of the people they meet and photograph, or the psychological consequences of what they witness.

Digital Photojournalism in Wartime
J.D. Lasica

The Digital Journalist

LINKS TO ORGANIZATIONS:

US Domestic Covert Operations

Institute for Media, Peace & Security

Institute for War and Peace Reporting

American Press Institute

UC Berkley Graduate School of Journalism

Al-Jazeera Online in English

USC Annenburg – Online Journalism Review

Committee to Protect Journalists

International Federation of Journalists

Reporters Sans Frontières (Reporters Without Borders)
http://www.rsf.fr/

Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations (Russia)
http://www.cjes.ru/

Index on Censorship and Index on Free Expression

International Press Institute

ARTICLES, REPORTS & PUBLICATIONS

Deep Trouble from Shallow US Media
Keith Spicer

Professionalism in War Reporting: A Correspondent’s View
Tom Gjelten

Beyond Scapegoats and Stereotypes
Charles Haynes

Portraying the Graphic Face of War
J.D. Lasica

Covering Violence: How Should the Media Handle Conflict?
Danny Schecter

The Dangers of Disinformation in the War on Terror
Maude S. Beelman, The Nieman Foundation for Journalism
Harvard University (for sale)