David Astley

By David Astley

What Peace Journalism Is All About

It is the people who are working on a daily basis behind the camera and behind the microphone, who need to be educated about the practices of peace journalism. That’s why I am wondering whether we are reaching the journalists, editors and producers who are responsible for what goes to air. They are the people that need to understand what peace journalism is all about. They are the people who need to be educated about the background to the conflicts that they are covering so that their reports can be objective and so that they can put into practice some of the principles of peace journalism.

Organisations like broadcasting unions, and other capacity building institutions, have to critically evaluate how we can best translate this dialogue into behavioural changes at the day-to-day working level in the broadcasting organisations that make up our membership.

I tried to work out how many journalists, editors and producers there are working in the electronic news media around the world. But how many of those do we reach each year with all of the training, workshops and seminars that the broadcast unions and other organisations undertake? If the outcomes of the dialogues that we engage in, and conclusions of the research that academics undertake, don’t reach more than one per cent of the practitioners on the ground in our industry – the men and women who produce the daily news reports and the background documentaries – how can we expect the role of the media in this field to have any impact on preventing conflicts or contributing to peace?

Practical guidelines and codes of conduct

We can make a difference, but we need to do it not just by trying to bring more people to more workshops and seminars, but by taking the information that is the output of events like this, and of research that is undertaken by academics and some of the media research organisations working in this field, and translating that information into practical guidelines and codes of conduct that can be utilised on a daily basis by broadcasters and news agencies.

For those organisations, like the ABU, that are involved in capacity building, we can play a vital role in helping broadcasters to prepare material in plain, simple language, that can effect changes in the way that conflict situations are interpreted and reported on - but utilising the research, findings and recommendations that can be made available to us by the many experts working in this field.

If we can achieve that; if we can reach the editors and journalists who have to make the choices of what stories to report, and how to report them, in such a way that they create opportunities for their audiences to consider and value non-violent responses to conflict; then we should be able to claim that we have made a useful contribution to facilitating a positive and pro-active role for the media in conflict prevention and peace building.

Mr. David Astley is Secretary General of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU). This text is adapted from his keynote address on "The Role of Broadcasting Unions in Peace Building and Conflict Prevention" to the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum, Bonn, Germany, 2 June 2008.