Peace or war journalists?

Truth may delay peace, truth may wreck peace, but, truth is not regotiable - Anita Pratap

Bandula Jayasekara

MEDIA: Minister Comrade D. E. W. Gunasekara has spoken again and bashed the media again. Speaking at a seminar on the 'Role of Media in Peace' on Wednesday, Gunasekara says " The conflict which finally transformed into bloody war was fuelled by media in its germination, aggravation and escalation".

He has also asked the media not to be political animals and mouth pieces to war mongers. DEW also says that Watch dogs have become lap dogs, slaves to the capitalist owner's agendas.

Comrade DEW is a good man. He is also a simple and a friendly man. But, he cannot all the time blame the journalists for aggravation and escalation of the conflict. He's got to blame that man in the Wanni Vellupillai Prabhakaran.

Gunasekara's much respected cabinet colleague late Lakshman Kadirgamar said at a press conference once "No democratically elected government will go for war. War or no war is in the mind of just one person. That is Vellupillai Prabhakaran". Wonder if Comrade DEW heard that before.

Journalists among others are also in search of that illusive peace which Mr Prabhakaran limiting to a dream of all Sri Lankans. Journalists don't kill people, don't carry out suicide attacks, recruit child soldiers, abductions and tax innocent people. But, journalists do expose what the evil do and how they smuggle weapons, and carry out their narcotics trade and also what the real warmongers do and also what the merchants of peace do and how they sell peace.

Journalists also expose people who betray the country and the people who sell the country. We do agree that certain journalists too betray the country. That we are against, because national interest comes first and it's a noble thing to love one's country.

We are reproducing an article written by the writer to The Island in July 2002. Hope it would interest Comrade DEW because the truth is not negotiable.

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WAR OR PEACE: Ross Horward, a former senior editor of Vancouver TV News, told a seminar in Colombo that Sri Lanka needs peace correspondents, people who are sincerely committed towards conflict resolution through balance objective and sensitive reporting or feature writing. He said that conflict news is sensationalised.

He added that media is an international profession and has the capacity to play the role of a facilitator in conflicts. We need peace correspondents as much as war correspondents. Taking a lead from Horward, we asked three respected Indian correspondents and a veteran Sri Lankan correspondent with wide International experience, for their views.

Professor V. Suryanarayan of Frontline magazine and an expert on Sri Lankan affairs and Anita Pratap former CNN South Asia Bureau Chief and author of, 'The Island of Blood' and also an expert on Sri Lankan affairs and Monu Nalapat former Editor in chief of Times of India and son of famous Indian poet and writer Kamala Das.

Professor V. Suryanarayan agreed with Horward. He said, "I fully concur with the views of Ross Horward. Journalists can provide meaningful inputs in the resolution of conflicts. But, the media in South Asian countries believe in sensationalism and adds fuel to the fire. There had been exceptions like Inder Jit who contributed a lot in finding a solution to Gurkhaland agitation and BG Verghese who is writing about the possibilities of wider economic co-operations in the North-East.

However, journalist and author of The Island of Blood, Anita Pratap, differs on the matter. She says "There is nothing called peace journalism. Duty of all journalists is to keep people informed. Nothing more." Anita's views were stronger than Suryanarayan.

She said, "It is the media's job to report a conflict, not to solve it. If they do their job well and professionally, they can ensure the conflict is not unnecessarily aggravated. They may even actually help create a climate where reconciliation and resolution becomes possible.

"These are the side benefits. But good, strong, professional, ethical journalism is all that should be expected out of the media. It is unrealistic and counter productive to impose additional burdens on them. It is like expecting a dentist to perform heart surgery.

The impression that media aggravates crisis is not generally true. But the media does aggravate conflicts only when it is unprofessional and plays a partisan role. So the need in a conflict situation is not peace journalism but more ethical professional journalism."

"I have heard this term being used increasingly 'peace journalists'". The argument is that if you have war correspondents you can have peace journalists. I am not comfortable with this terminology. I don't think we need to create new and artificial categories of journalism.

Would peace journalists only cover peace? War correspondents certainly cover all kinds of stories, not just war. Would a peace journalist in Sri Lanka only cover the peace process? Would the person willy nilly exclude any event that threatens the peace process? For instance, if there were truce violations by either the Tamil guerrillas or the government, would the peace journalist, in the interest of maintaining peace, keep silent? Let me tell you, if I were the boss, I wouldn't hire such a peace journalist.

We want truth, we want to know what's really going on out there, not what should be going on. Journalists are meant to be watchdogs, not lap gods of anything or anyone, be it a government, movement or peace process. Journalists have to apply scrutiny to what is going on around them; it is their job to constantly be alert to ceasefire violations and report on them quickly after they are factually verified.

Truth might hurt some people, it might ink the well-intentioned mediators, but there simply is no substitute for truth. Truth cannot and must not be swept under the carpet. It may delay peace, it may even wreck peace, but truth is not negotiable. A peace process that is based on lies and shams will never work anyway on a permanent basis. But if ceasefire violations are reported in good faith early, then correctional steps can be taken in time.

Just as journalists should not have a vested interest in war, so, too, they must not have a vested interest in peace. If they do their professionalism, neutrality and objectivity will suffer and they will eventually lose their credibility and become dysfunctional. If the person fails to report the problems a peace process has run into, people who know more than we often think, start disbelieving them.

Monu Nalapat had this to say "War can never be an end in itself but on the means to peace, not the submission of the just by the evil but the peace that comes from the destruction from the forces that seek to replace civilisation with the brutal regime of a Taliban. Those reporting such conflicts should remember that there is never a moral equivalence between a Roosevelt and a Hitler.

A veteran Sri Lankan journalist with wide international experience had this to say, "My honest view is this. Journalists have a role, an important role to play whether it is in war or in peace. Their sacred duty is to report what they perceive is the truth bearing in mind the dictum, facts are sacred but comment is free.

It is not only "war or peace" reporting that is sensationalised. As journalists, both you and I know, this is a phenomenon which is sadly rampant every field of reporting - be it crime, entertainment, politics or sports to mention a few.