Can media be used to promote peace, love and understanding?

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“Media is for peace, love and understanding.” This was the theme of the second talk held by the POLIS dialogues at the LSE on the 12^th of October 2010. Journalists Amit Segal, from Israel’s Channel 2 News, and Faisal J. Abbas, from the Huffington Post, had the extraordinary task of answering this question in a mere twenty minutes each, with the rest of the time devoted to some good-natured grilling from the audience.

“No, no and not really.”

So was the answer of the first speaker, Amit, as he took to the podium. He proceeded to give three basic points about conflict journalism. Firstly, he pointed out that conflicts do not necessarily involve any weapons, as they can be between authorities, between states, between football clubs and so forth. He gave an example of this by showing the audience a video of him reporting after the flotilla event on May 31^st 2010 outside of the Israeli embassy in London. During his report, he allowed a Hezbollah supporter to say a few words on screen, who took the opportunity to state that Israel has no right to exist. After this was aired, the Israeli news website in which it was posted received 1187 comments, with Israeli’s claiming that Amit was anti-Israeli because he had allowed the Hezbollah supporter to share his point of view. This point resonated deeply with the audience as it demonstrated the sheer impact that journalism can have on a country where the truth can sometimes be compromised by an unwilling audience.

Secondly, he adeptly stated that neither patriotism or journalism are absolute values, as journalists experience their own conflicts when reporting conflicts, especially when reporting news that affects them personally. Last, but not least, and perhaps most controversially, he said, “journalism is not about reporting facts” but is instead about creating your own perspective and providing the audience with something new. Now, this caused some rupture in the room and a significant amount of questioning. Later when I asked him about this, he clarified his point, saying, “I do firmly support the obsessive chase after facts, and there is no doubt facts are the corner stone of public opinion and discussion. However, as the world progresses, the traditional role of the press to report the mere facts are no longer sufficient. Journalists have to give their added value in order to survive.” He proceeded to say that, “Journalists, like politicians, have constituencies in that they have a specific audience that watches them every night.” 

Faisal opened with a powerpoint inspired by the popular television series 24, a move which garnered quite a lot of applause from the audience, who it appears are all equally addicted to the show. Faisal echoed Amit’s view that media is NOT for peace love and understanding, and preceded to give reasons that supported his claim such as the impact of our own perceptions and the effect of polarization. He cited examples such as Fox News and the Lebanese media as being core examples of polarization, which he believes have devastating effects on the media. He says, “I believe the work is done not to inform but to reinforce certain ideological beliefs by being selective in stories they choose to air, time given to guests and the way questions are asked.”

Faisal also pointed to the nature of journalism, and how this in itself is inherently problematic. For example, he stated that what makes global headlines these days, such as the obsessive coverage by all news sources of Pastor Terry Jones, is usually something that can sell, rather than something that is actually important.  When I asked a question later about what he thinks about the sensationalism of journalism, and whether this is killing “real journalism” he replied, “Yes, I do think journalists tend to be sensationalists by nature - and why wouldn't they? At the end of the day you would want your story to be read, seen or heard and as a publisher you would want your paper to sell... So, we often tend to 'spice things up' a bit, or sometimes a lot. However, as I said any word said or image published could have a tremendous effect - so we all need to think twice, double check the facts and try to lift ourselves as journalists beyond the desire of being recognised and focus on accuracy and balanced reporting rather than blowing things out of proportion.”

Both Amit and Faisal had very interesting points to make during this session. So what do you think? Can media be used for peace, love and understanding?