Media and Conflict
by Melanie Y. Pinlac
Aware of the crucial role of the media in peace-building, the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) organized a Peace Journalism Seminar in Antipolo City from Nov. 23 to 25, 2007. The seminar was attended by beat reporters, correspondents, and community journalists from Metro Manila and the provinces.
The seminar’s goal was to equip journalists with the skills and values of peace journalism. Among those critical skills, the participants were told, is the capacity and readiness to provide the historical and political context often lacking in reporting conflicts. Reporting the “bigger story” enables the public to better understand the causes of conflict, and, therefore, to find the solutions to them.
CMFR deputy director and journalism professor Luis Teodoro emphasized that peace journalism is different from war reporting, which focuses on incidents of violence like firefights and ambushes, and on the casualties among the protagonists. War journalism, said Teodoro, emphasizes body counts, and winners and losers. It “focuses only on (these) aspects of a conflict and ignores others; (and relies primarily on) official and government sources.” The result is lopsided and biased reporting that is hardly helpful in enabling citizens to understand the causes of conflicts.
For journalists to comprehensively report conflicts, they must first understand their causes, as well as look into the grievances of the parties involved. Equally important is the need to report the impact of violence on the communities, the prospects for peace, as well as the factors that led to the conflict so as to prevent the outbreak of future ones.
These themes found resonance in the discussions that followed, and were picked up in the final session in which the participants focused on improving conflict reporting by using the principles of peace reporting.
Lawyer Soliman Santos discussed the current peace situation in the country in the context of the peace negotiations launched by the government with six armed groups. Teresita Quintos Deles, former presidential peace adviser and director of the International Center for Innovation, Transformation and Excellence in Governance (INCITEGov), explained how the government handled the peace processes during her term in government.
Party-list Congressman Satur Ocampo, University of the Philippines professor Miriam Coronel Ferrer, and Rudy Rodil provided journalists with analyses and overviews of the armed struggle being waged by the National Democratic Front-Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA-NDFP), and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
Rodil, a retired professor of history and a current member of the government peace panel in the GRP(Government of the Republic of the Philippines)-MILF talks, explained the historical context of the Mindanao conflict, while Ferrer and Ocampo explained the successes and failures of the stalled negotiations between the NDFP-CPP-NPA and the GRP. Ferrer also called attention to the importance of explaining the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) to ordinary citizens. CARHRIHL is one of the few agreements to emerge from the now stalled CPP-NPA-NDF/GRP peace talks.
The speakers also reminded the media of the need to mainstream peace initiatives and processes. Gaston Z. Ortigas Peace Institute director Karen Tañada later explained how the media could help civil society organizations involved in the peace movement to bring their message to the people. But she said that civil society also seeks information and understanding from the media about events and issues affecting the communities. She added that civil society can also help media in gaining relevant information and research materials. Fr. Eliseo Mercado Jr., meanwhile, provided the participants details on the peace efforts of Mindanao civil society groups.
Explaining the state of conflict reporting in the Philippines, Carol Arguillas of the news agency MindaNews described how the national media had been covering the Mindanao conflict for years. Because many reports lack proper contextualization, ordinary media readers, liste-ners, and viewers associate Mindanao with the Abu Sayyaf Group, with wars, kidnappings, bombings and population displacements, because many national media organizations choose to emphasize violence as a selling point. Arguillas also said that media organizations should not treat Mindanao as “just a defense beat,” but as a vast region of diverse populations, problems, and concerns.
Regional Perspective
Three veteran journalists from South and Southeast Asia also discussed their experiences in covering conflicts in their respective countries. Their insights echoed those of the earlier speakers and tended to validate the need for peace journalism not only in the Philippines but in many parts of Asia where conflicts continue to rage.
From Indonesia, The Jakarta Post chief editor Endy Bayuni, said journalists in his paper do conflict analysis by going back to past news stories, reading books for background, and interviewing experts. Bayuni also stressed that journalists should be careful in framing stories. He said that the challenge for peace journalists is to look at conflict from the viewpoint of “innocent victims” rather than from that of the antagonists.
Thai journalist Kavi Chong-kittavorn agreed. The executive editor of the Bangkok broadsheet The Nation said that in conflict situations, journalists should see to it that the reports they produce do not simplify conflicts into “us” and “them,” with “us” representing the good, and “them” evil. He also reminded journalists of the effect of focusing only on “official” or government statements. Chongkittavorn said that when covering the insurgency in southern Thailand, journalists “often cite only information from local authorities and security forces. As a result the reports tend to present a one-sided picture of the situation by “focusing on the official version of conflict, journalists have not been able to report the real situation in (southern Thailand).”
Kunda Dixit of the Nepali Times also reminded the media to look at the impact of wars on ordinary folk. The suffering and situation of ordinary citizens is often underreported or not reported at all. He stressed that ordinary citizens are the most affected sector in times of war.
Initiatives for peace journalism
In the twelfth and final session, the participants, apparently convinced of the need, offered a number of suggestions on improving conflict reporting in the Philippines. Several suggested that similar seminars on peace journalism be held in the different provinces of the Philippines. Jaime Laude of The Philippine Star said editors and desk persons, not just reporters, should also be trained on peace journalism, since it is they who decide what the final version of reports would be, as well their emphasis and placement.
Others recommended site visits and the formation of research groups for peace journalists. They also suggested the creation of an online group library that would serve as a clearing house for information on the conflicts.
Still others said that media organizations should devote airtime and space to groups other than the Moro National Liberation Front, CPP-NPA-NDFP, and the MILF. Other than these conflicts, they said there are others that are raging or are about to break out in some parts of the Philippines, such as those where mining has become a volatile community issue. The divisions within the Philippine military are also a possible source of future conflict.
Melvin Gascon, a Northern Luzon correspondent for the Philippine Daily Inquirer, said that many of those who join rebellions do so because of military abuses and socio-economic problems. Other issues like the tenancy problem should also be reported these being perpetual sources of social instability.
Bong Sarmiento of Business-World also suggested creating “alternative outlets” for stories on Mindanao that are not published in the dailies or which fail to air over the networks. Many stories by reporters, especially correspondents, on developments in Mindanao do not see print in the daily national newspapers.
The participants in the CMFR peace seminar were: Roices Sibal (ABC-5); Leila Vicente (ABS-CBN 2); Torleif Storaas (Aften Posten/Evening Post); Rene Acosta (BusinessMirror); Bong Sarmiento (BusinessWorld); Germelina Lacorte (Davao Today); Portia Nadua (DXSM-Radyo ng Bayan); Rio Rose Ribaya (Manila Bulletin); Jose Torres Jr. (GMANews.TV); Gilbert Bayoran (Malaya/Visayan Daily Star); Carmela Fonbuena (Newsbreak); Avigail Olarte (Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism); Robert Abaño, Nikko Dizon, Melvin Gascon, Tonette Orejas, Nestor Burgos Jr. (Philippine Daily Inquirer); Jaime Laude (The Philippine Star); Manny Mogato (Reuters); Ferdinand Sampang (STBF-DXMM-AM); and Anthony Vargas (The Manila Times).
|
