War vs. Peace Journalism
War journalism has a bias towards violence and conflict, and provides the audience with mainly violent solutions to a problem, neglecting non-violent options. When reporting a conflict between two parties, war journalism discusses the differences between the parties, rather than the similarities or common ground. It calls for hatred and stimulates the usage of more violence. Furthermore, war journalism focuses on the physical effects of the conflict, instead of the emotional or psychological effects. Additionally, it assumes that one party can only gain if the other party loses (zero sum). It is said to be the mouthpiece of the elite. Peace journalism attempts to correct for this bias. Peace Journalism is “when editors and reporters make choices - of what to report, and how to report it - that create opportunities for society at large to consider and value non-violent responses to conflict”. It basically provides the audience with creative and peaceful solutions to a problem, and advocates peace in general. Additionally, it is said to give voice to the voiceless, the citizens that suffer from the conflict. It tries to be an observer in the conflict, rather than advocating violence.
There is controversy about reporting war and peace in general. If one reports war just by stating the events, it distorts the idea, since all conflicts are basically confrontations or parties with opposing goals.
According to Galtung, who first introduced the idea of peace journalism, the major cause of violence is disregard of the other party’s opinions, and a lack of empathy. A party in a conflict stands for something specific, which they try to achieve. If they want their voice to be heard, but they feel that it is not listened to, or whatever they say is being twisted into something else, they might start using violence, because they feel that is the only way to make them be heard. He states that with peace journalism, the situation in Northern Ireland would have improved many years ago.
Rwandan Media
"RTLM was created specifically as a tool of the genocidaires to demonize the Tutsi, lay the ground work, then literally drive on the killing once the genocide started." – Roméo Dallaire, head of UN mission to Rwanda
Within Rwanda, there was Hutu extremist propaganda, created by the Hutu government. Rwandan media is now said to my partially guilty for providing the framework for violence and hatred. In the early 1990s, Tutsis wanted to come back to Rwanda from neighboring countries. The Hutu government saw this as a threat to their power, and spread the rumor that the Tutsis came to attack the Hutus, rather than coming back to their home country. Eventually, 10 percent of all killings during the genocide are believed to be due to hate media in Rwanda.
The radio had been the Hutu government’s mouthpiece before the genocide, and the government knew the power that media could have. According to Kellow and Steeves, the broadcaster ‘Radio-Television Libre des Mille Collines’ (RTLM), of which the Hutu president had a significant shareholder, started spreading hate media in 1993. They say that the media was set up to prepare the civilians for the genocide that had yet to come. The radio was a convenient medium for the Hutu government, as it was affordable for the average Rwandans. It was different from Radio Rwanda, the radio station that had been the government’s mouthpiece until then. It was a typical FM radio; playing music that the Rwandan citizens liked, and using deejays that made them laugh. They could call the radio deejays, make comments, and request songs. This is the reason why the Rwandans, also when the hate media started, perceived RTLM as their own voice. However, it still was a governmental organization and had kept its authoritarian tone. The hate media toward Tutsis could therefore not easily be disregarded as a neighbor’s proposal.
When the genocide started, RTLM was a propagandist medium, which evoked the Hutus to exterminate the Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The Tutsis were called cockroaches that were ruining the Rwandan society, and RTLM indicated several methods to kill Tutsis. Also, it live reported conversations between supposedly Tutsis, talking about how much they hate Hutus. Later during the genocide, names of Tutsis that had yet to be killed were mentioned on RTLM, together with the location where they could be found. Radio Rwanda followed RTLM’s example, calling the killing of Hutu ‘work’, and that all Hutus owed it to society to ‘work hard’. The few foreigners left in Rwanda, whether journalists, humanitarian aid-providers, or soldiers, were also attacked on the Hutu Radio.
Besides radio, there was also printed propagandist media. Kangura, the anti-Tutsi newspaper, was government owned as well, and together with RTLM spread hatred towards Tutsis and everyone helping them. Kangura introduced the ‘Ten Commandments of the Hutu’. In these commandments, Tutsis were said to be the Hutus’ enemies, and that Hutus should not deal with them. Tutsi women were called temptresses that had to be avoided. These commandments are said to be the real reason why Hutu men killed their Tutsi wives, and why they could kill their closest friends. These are example of the dangers of governmental ownership of media.
International Media Coverage
In 1990, when the RPF invaded Rwanda, human rights organizations and the CIA had warned the world and US government for a civil war on Rwandan ground. The Western media, however, ignored this, even though there were suspicious murders of Rwandan leaders and high officials. The media did publish some details about the story, but mainly focusing on refugees in Uganda, waiting for their humanitarian aid. The humanitarian aid was the focal point, not the genocide itself. In 1991, the media coverage on Rwanda worsened, as they now mainly spoke, if at all, about AIDS and other common African problems. In 1992, the first actual details on the slaughters were posted in the New York Times: a silverback gorilla was shot. According to Karnik, this is a typical example of the media making small things big, and significant things small.
In 1994, all foreigners present were recommended, and sometimes forced, to leave the country, regardless of their duty. It may be therefore, why there are not many pictures of the genocide available, and why there was so little media attention for an event with such an amount of killings per day.
The media that was present to take pictures and able to publish them, misrepresented them time after time. People in the West did see images of deaths, but they were depicted as a result of tribal war, and ancient hatred. And on first sight, this was the case. Tutsis and Hutus killing each other. The present journalists had no knowledge about the colonial background of Rwanda, or about the cultural and political history. Therefore, they were unable to discover the deeper reasons for the genocide, which were researched in later years. Additionally, international media refused to use the word genocide, like the US government, until the genocide was already over. Only French media used the word genocide, even in early warnings in 1993. All the rest of Western media failed to call it by its actual name, possibly due to their loyalty towards the US government.
The focus of the news stories quickly shifted from death and slaughter to refuge, disease, and starvation. Therefore, there was not much attention to explain what was happening, and why children died from diseases that had been treatable for a while. Images of piles of bodies, died of cholera, that were thrown in mass graves were published, not mentioning the lack of support from the international community, who possibly could have prevented these deaths. Due to the stigma of cholera, Western countries were hesitant to take in Rwandan refugees, as they felt they had to put the health of their own citizens first. Besides disease, Western media mainly showed refugee camps full of women and children, while mentioning in the text that Hutu extremist were hiding in the camps. All in all, there was a lot of confusion in Western regions about what was actually going on in Rwanda.
Hindsight, the Rwandan genocide did get media attention. The media called the Rwandan genocide a failure of the international community. Many academic articles and documentaries have been published, elaborating on the causes for the event. Also, the finger was pointed at Western policymakers, who had had clear warnings, and who are suspected to have influenced the international media, because they were unwilling to intervene.
Conclusion
Media is said to have the task to be a ‘watchdog’ of the government, instead of being government owned. In Rwandan (propaganda) media, this went terribly wrong as it played a significant role in the killing of Tutsis and moderate Hutus. But also in the international community, media failed to be independent and objective. They distorted the facts, as far as they understood them with their lack of historical background on the situation, making the genocide seem less severe. The word genocide was not used until shortly before it ended, and instead, the situation was depicted as ‘African savages’, or tribal wars.
With more media coverage, there probably would have been more pressure from the international community for the policy makers to do something about the slaughter. This may have resulted in intervention, possibly saving thousands of lives. However, it is uncertain whether the international community would have come into action if there had been proper media coverage of the genocide. Furthermore, Rwanda now is a progressive and stable country in Africa. We do not know whether this would have been the case if the international community had intervened. Hopefully, the world citizens have learned from the past, and hindsight media coverage on the topic, so that such a genocide will not happen again in the future. The role of the media in the Rwandan genocide is a good example of what could happen if media sides with the ‘evil party’. Our best defense against war journalism, and distortion of facts by media, is by viewing them critically.
Sources
Galtung, J. (1998) High Road, Low Road. Charting the course for Peace Journalism. Track two, 7(4)
Galtung, J. (2000). The Task of Peace Journalism. Ethical Perspectives, 7(2-3). 162-167
Gutekunst, M. (1995). The Mille Collines and Kigali at War. Issue: A Journal of Opinion, 23. 222-227
Hanitzch, T. (2004). Journalists as a peace keeping force? Peace journalism and mass communication theory. Journalism Studies, 5(4), 483-495
Karnik, N.S. (1998). Rwanda & the Media: Imergary, War & Refuge. Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 25(78). 611-623
Kellow, C.L. & Steeves, L. (1998). Role of Radio in Rwandan Genocide. Journal of Communication. 107-128
Lynch, J. & McGoldrick, A. (2005). Peace Journalism. Handbook of Peace and Conflict Studies
Lynch, J. (2006). What’s so great about peace journalism? GMJ Mediterranean Edition, 1(1). 74-86
McGoldrick, A. (2006). War Journalism and ‘Objectivity’. Conflict & Commucication Online, 5(2)
Straus, S. (2007). What Is the Relationship between Hate Radio and Violence? Rethinking Rwanda's "Radio Machete". Politics Society, 35. 609-637
Taylor, C.C. (1999). A Gendered Genocide: Tutsi Women and Hutu Extremists in the 1994 Rwanda Genocide. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 22(1). 42–54
Wilton, T. (1992). Antibody politic: AIDS and society. Cheltenham, UK: New Clarion Press.
Yanagizawa-Drott, D. (2012). Propaganda and Conflict: Theory and Evidence from the Rwandan Genocide
Barker, G. & Powell, J. (2004). Ghost of Rwanda. [documentary]. Frontline: WGBH Boston
Word Count: 2307
Documentary: Ghost of Rwanda
Documentary: Ghost of Rwanda
Documentary: Ghost of Rwanda
Documentary: Ghost of Rwanda
Documentary: Ghost of Rwanda
by
suhielk (student)
