Executive Director, Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict

 
President, Council on Foreign Relations
"Journalists are in the business of news, not truth. When journalists forget that, they do very misleading and destructive things."

 

Summary: Journalists, especially when they don't go into the field, have difficulty reporting on wars, although they do a better job reporting on wars than governments do at prosecuting them. Training and norms of reporting on war are just the same as those during peacetime, except more so.

 

 

 

 
Director, Program in International Media and Communications,
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University

 
Correspondent, ABC News
"I don't think there's a real difference between what editors, pundits, and reporters are fundamentally trying to do. They're all trying to get at the truth as best they can to expand a perspective."

 

Summary: Blakemore describes the difference between journalism and propaganda, exposes a few rules for ethics in war reporting, and describes myths pertaining to television journalism.

 
Author, The Warrior's Honor: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience and Blood and Belonging
"One of the things that is really corrupting journalists and journalism and is eroding its public legitimacy with its audience is this ravenous appetite for real time punditry that is unconstrained by epistemological modesty. So stick to what you know."

Summary: Ignatieff relates the six injunctions that he uses to guide him through the ethical dilemmas of reporting on conflict.

 
International Reporter, The Guardian
Bureau Chief and Correspondent, Observer
"People complain about the mass media, and boy, so do I, but when we're not around, what goes on - the mind boggles."

 

Summary: Vulliamy explains the extreme ethical dilemma he was placed in when he discovered the death camps of Bosnia - and why that dilemma will become more common while getting more complicated.

 
 
 
 
 
Senior Fellow, U.S. Institute of Peace
Chair, Department of Communication, Hebrew University
"If we want to understand how destructive the media will play in any peace process, I would argue that the more the media moves along the tabloid continuum, the more it becomes a tabloid, then the more the need for drama increases, the more the need for immediacy increases, the more entertainmentfunctions become the primary motive, and the more destructive the role the media plays. Indeed, I would argue that the tabloid journalism which has become prevalent in Israel is one of the greatest threats not only to peace in Israel but also to Israeli democracy in general."

Summary: Wolfsfeld argues that the needs of the news media are ultimately incompatible with the realities of peace process, and that the former tends to harm the latter.

 
Journalist, author and co-host, "Reliable Sources," CNN
"If you go cover a story, and you become an eyewitness to it, and you are telling us exactly what happen, it may very well be that a repudiation of neutrality can indeed approximate the truth. In other words, there doesn't need to be a gap between neutrality and objectivity."

Summary: Mr. Kalb took up several points made by the panel discussing "Ethical Issues in Conflict Coverage".

 

 

 

 

 

Director, International Program, Columbia School of Journalism

"When wars occur, people (journalists) are often thrown into them with very little training, very little preparation, and that can lead to faulty coverage, it can also lead to personal danger."

Summary: Ms. Nelson presented a wish list of what training might be appropriate for journalists going into the field, and introduced the panel "Training Journalists."

 
 
 
 

Sanapaolo Professor of International Journalism and
Administrator of The Pulitzer Prizes, Columbia School of Journalism

"While there is a need for explanatory and analytical reporting, more of a need than in the past … still, giving them the facts, veering away from advocacyreporting I still believe is the best approach. What I think a reporter should be doing, and what we ought to be training reporters to do, is to lay out the facts in such a way that it creates an incentive in society to take action."

Summary: Mr. Topping explained the selection processes in foreign correspondents, deplored a veering away from neutrality in reporting, and assessed the role of Journalism schools in training journalists to cover conflicts.

 
 
 

Editor, Crosslines Global Report and President,
International Centre for Humanitarian Reporting

"Whenever I come back to the States, the land of communications, I find that I'm in a desert. I turn on the television, and I'm not learning anything. It's trash. … It is very distressing, because when you are trying to teach or help local journalists in conflict zones to understand the concepts of journalism you have to hold up certain standards."

Summary: Mr. Girardet discussed the issues he faced in training local journalists in Albania to provide information for refugees.

 
 
 
 
 

Editor, Connection Newspapers and Former Editor-in-Chief, Oslobejenje

"On April 9, 1992, a small town correspondent for my paper ... knew that he was facing a death threat. A day before he was killed he sent us three pieces of news. The main one was titled: "Three Arkan Men Arrested in Zvornik" Thesubject of it was that "they claimed they came to Zvornik because they were concerned about Muslims being harmed." I think that is the most perfect example of everything you want to see in objective reporting. He gave a voice to the very people who came ahead of the forces that would kill him tomorrow."

Summary: Mr. Kurspahic related his experiences as Editor in Chief of an Independent Newspaper in Bosnia.

 

Diplomatic Correspondent, Newsday

"My instinct when I hear the word 'training' is to recoil, to get out of town, to go the other way. I think it's a typical journalistic instinct, because we tend to feel that we are self-training people. That we go in with naive questions and the deliberate aim of educating ourselves and at the end of the day, we hope we figure it out."

Summary: Mr. Gutman shared his experiences in covering war crimes in Bosnia and discussed his objectives in coordinating a new book on the subject.

 

Manager of Economics Journalism Training, World Bank Institute

…"You get the information out there, you got to extraordinary lengths to learn the truth and put it together in a way that has credibility and accuracy and nothing happens. And then what do we do?"

Summary: Mr. Carrington brought up several points discussed in the panel "Training Journalists".

 

 

Executive Director, Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict

 

 

Summary: Holl, in reference to Gjelten's comparison of journalism and the military, pointed out that the interaction between the military and the media has been very beneficial. She also underlined the difference in the two professions.

 
 
 

Diplomatic Correspondent, National Public Radio

"I, for one, do not agree that we should forget about objectivity. It's obvious that objectivity is some absolute sense is impossible, but I do think that we should strive to be objective. To take that as a standard is not to say that we have hopes of really becoming objective, but if we define objectivity as telling the truth and being accurate and honest about it, I think that is a worthwhile goal."

Summary: Mr.Gjelten discussed some pitfalls that face journalists reporting on conflict and discussed the fact that nothing more formal than a loose peer review is possible to advance the cause of ethically responsible journalism.

 
 
 

Director, Center for War, Peace, and the News Media, New York University and Chairman, National Press Institute (of the Russian Federation)

"It is no longer sufficient to repeat the mantras of objectivity and to retreat to definitions of existing professionalism in the face of overwhelming evidence thatmedia powerfully effect the course of events in the societies we are concerned with."

Summary: Mr. Manoff assessed the possibilities for a journalism of reconciliation and of community-building.

 

Senior Fellow and Director, Nigeria Programs, Panos Institute

"The notion that journalism is a skill has left the intellectual parts of that skill lacking. But it's important to constantly theorize this profession, because that's the only way to solve some of these problems."

Summary: Mr Olorunyomi deplored the lack of theory in the study of media and conflict and recounted his experiences as editor of an opposition paper in Nigeria.

 

Professor, Department of Journalism, Department of Journalism, New York University

"When discussing norms of conduct, it doesn't help us to pretend that norms and goals and missions and attempts to achieve a better world are somehow incompatible with seeking the truth, because the very premise of a serious journalist's career is that that is in fact possible."

Summary: Rosen suggested that journalists to look at several issues to understand how to make a difference and tell the truth at the same time. These include human rights, international law, and conflict resolution. He said in talks with journalists, as well as students, they said they entered the journalism profession because they wants 'to make a difference.' Almost no one replies, he said, that they go into journalism with a passion for objectivity or because they were particularly dispassionate or had 'a love for the fact.'