4. JOURNALISM AND MARKET FORCES

The content of news is shaped by three main influences. One comes from the limits set down by the state, in the form of laws, censorship and access to information. The second is a 'civic society' element: journalists are exponents and guardians of values which belong both to everyone and to no-one. These have evolved in implicit dialogue with audiences and the public at large, and develop a little further whenever journalists meet to discuss the ethics and principles of their work - especially if they do so in consultation with professionals from other fields as in the conferences Conflict and Peace Forums have organised over the past few years.

But the factor which has been the focus of most critical endeavour in Western societies is the influence of market forces, including the pattern and identity of media ownership. The approach to conflict coverage advocated here is a demanding one. Although many aspects of it can be built into the most modest pull-together of agency copy and/or pictures back at base, it represents an argument for proper location reporting and the space to convey complexity, two commodities threatened by the conditions of a ferociously competitive global market. These conditions, as experienced by the many professional journalists of good conscience who grapple with the constraints they impose, were characterised by then Observer editor in-chief Will Hutton at the CPF conference in 1999:

"Firstly, there is now a multiplicity of outlets. Two - they want to be heard so they shout to be heard, which coarsens what can be said...and so when you place a phone call to the commissioning editor, often they are just ignorant, actually of some of the points you're making. And they haven't got the time to do anything else, either accept the official line, or crudely challenge it head to head...Coming at it from the flank, [trying] to redefine the terms of debate or to declare independence from the herd's agenda is just not on in this context."

This publication represents an attempt to enhance journalists' ability to open up official agendas from the flank, redefine the terms of debate and to differentiate their coverage from that of the herd. But to do so by working through civic society means alone is to risk being swamped by the coarsening, crudifying processes Hutton laments.

As in so many other contexts, the challenge is to rethink the economics of the free market so as to harness them to human needs. There is a certain homology between classical economics and mainstream news as discussed here, so much so that it is possible to see them both as artifacts of the industrial age. Hazel Henderson, the internationally published futurist, describes economics as "the quintessential expression of Sensate values." She takes a definition of the Sensate value system from Pitirim A Sorokin, a Soviet sociologist who defected under Stalin and later built a successful career at Harvard: "Only what we see, hear, smell, touch and otherwise perceive through our sense organs is real and has value. Beyond such a sensory reality either there is nothing, or if there is something, we cannot sense it; therefore it is equivalent to the non-real and non-existent." The journalist cuts it down still further: 'we just report the facts'.

Henderson goes on to argue that economics is politics masquerading as science - the important decisions it makes are about the things it chooses to 'see, hear, smell, touch and otherwise perceive'. The rest are left out of equations as 'externalities'. So the profits of, say, an oil company can be calculated without taking into account the costs of clearing up after the damage to the environment wrought by people using its products. These costs are borne by society at large and not entered on the balance sheet.

Similarly, journalists who adhere to 'reporting the facts' theory believe their actions bear only the most random, fortuitous and tenuous connections with any real-world consequences - they too are 'externalities.' The case made here and by CPF over the past few years is based on examining precisely how particular kinds of newsgathering and reporting decisions can lead to particular kinds of consequences, thus sharpening the sense of responsibility. In economics, the research and campaigning work by a generation of environmental activists and scientists has mapped the effect of productive processes on global commons and given rise to a sophisticated discourse of corporate responsibility.

The rise of ethical purchasing and investment

Expecting companies to change their behaviour purely through goodwill would be the equivalent of hoping for a change in news to arise solely through the civic-society means of dialogue and the cultivation of shared values. Each process stands a good chance of stimulating the large number of committed individuals in their respective fields to do what they can - but without some system change it might not amount to very much.

Henderson herself is at the centre of a process based on obliging corporations to take externalities back into their calculations and behaviour, namely the rise of ethical investment and purchasing. An adviser to the New York-based Calvert Group, the world's leading ethical investment company, she has led the Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators project, devising means to measure economic activity against the needs of sustainable human development. In the foreword to the book of the same name, she sums up the effect of pressure from ethical investors and consumers on corporate processes:

"Only in the past decade have we seen the rise of environmental and ecological economics, full-cost accounting and life-cycle costing for investment purposes." The Social Investment Forum in New York estimated the total funds invested in the US alone according to socially responsible criteria at US$1.3 Trn in 1998 - and over US$2 Trn by 2000. The pattern of investment and purchasing, the research and development of sophisticated ethical criteria and the change in corporate practices are counterparts in a feedback loop of cause and effect.

The emergence and growth of this phenomenon cannot be understood using free-market economics, according to which people's behaviour in a market is based on maximising their own monetized self-interest at any given moment. It is this nostrum which brings us constant imperatives to remove barriers to the free expression of that self-interest. Neo-liberalism or The Washington Consensus argues that this is the key to maximising the efficiency of market economies, to the eventual benefit of all.

Inscribed in this is an assumption that 'self' is a settled, knowable category of 'natural' impulses, which arose logically prior to the social arrangements - what is at stake is the minimum extent to which these impulses need to be restrained. So with mainstream news - what we might, after Henderson, call 'industrial news'. 'Just reporting the facts' contains an assumption that facts are a settled, knowable category, logically prior to the intervention of news. A convenient way to avoid discussing what the journalist chooses to see, hear, smell, touch and otherwise perceive, and to blur the connections between these decisions and real world consequences in a feedback loop of cause and effect.

Hutton, too, in his guise as an economic commentator, has bemoaned "the British economic establishment [which] refuses to accept that financial structures and flows have 'real' effects." In one remarkably prescient piece for the Observer in July 1997, he foresaw Britain's economic problems of the ensuing three years, in particular job losses associated with a high pound caused by interest rates consistently higher than those in other similar countries.

British interest rates were set in order to keep a check on inflation, and pumped higher by the inbuilt bias in the British economy in favour of consumption over investment. Typical of this was the way mutual financial institutions had been allowed to turn themselves into corporations, portrayed as letting market forces have their head. But:

"The current demutualisation of building societies is going to pump £35 billion of consumer spending into the economy over the next twelve months while it creates a new layer of now demutualised consumer lending institutions. The profitability and stock market standing of these institutions will depend on their lending aggressively to those self-same consumers, thus adding to the institutional structures that favour consumption over investment."

The economic establishment works with an assumption that 'financial structures and flows' evolve in response to market forces, the natural preferences of market actors, to allow their freer expression. Hutton's argument is that the behaviour of market actors is at least partly constructed by financial structures and flows, just as the argument here is that the behaviour of newmakers is at least partly constructed by the newsgathering and reporting decisions made by journalists.

Two tentative suggestions

Many will know Hutton as the author of a highly important popular economics commentary, The State We're In, an eloquent and persuasive case for 'stakeholding' as a principle on which the UK economy could be rebuilt. A case he renewed in the Observer in the Spring of 2000: "All actors in a capitalist economy should be seen not simply as having individual freedom to do whatever they please, but rather as being at the centre of a reciprocal web of claims and obligations."

As with news, corporate behaviour may be influenced by the state as well as civic society and the markets, with Hutton's specific call being for governmental action from New Labour to build these principles into the framework of rules applying to corporate governance. However the specific needs of media companies make journalists and their audiences rightly suspicious of any suggestion of state control.

Which leaves the market - the aggregate of actions taken by consumers and investors - as a means to bring exernalities - the web of reciprocal claims and obligations, or the feedback loop of cause and effect - back into the equation. A tentative suggestion - the principles CPF have been developing could be the basis for a quality of life index for news, able to offer consumers and investors ways of gauging the contribution of news suppliers to sustainable human development before buying them or buying into them.

A second suggestion concerns the potential impact on the content of news of being disseminated by post-industrial means, like the lightwave technology of the Internet. There are familiar dystopian arguments that WAP technology will reduce news to the few headlines people can read from a tiny mobile phone window, or that being able to editorialise for oneself will lead to

insatiable demand for an unadulterated diet of sport and sensationalism. But I argued in What Are Journalists For, the predecessor to the current volume, that news could find a role for itself in 'illuminating the pathways' by which readers, listeners and viewers could become active in challenging the injustices and inequities brought to their attention by journalists.

Many London newspapers now list the addresses of websites for further reading around the subject covered by any particular piece. Fine if you can spare sufficient extra attention to do so. But the Internet is uniquely equipped to gather together the information about a particular subject in the same space as the means to wield an impact upon it, streamlining the process of activating the engaged conscience. If journalists can bring us a situation report from, say, the Thai-Burmese border, they can tell us, with another click on the same site, about the involvement of commercial interests in perpetuating and worsening the conflict involving the Yangon government and the country's ethnic minorities.

A further click could bring anything from the text of a letter to send to the management of a company involved, to a list of pension funds which invest in the company (and an information pack from an ethical fund which does not). Or perhaps another click could download a covenant form to make regular donations to a non-governmental organisation working to bring aid to refugees, or a catalogue featuring fair-traded goods made by exiled populations. A means of reconnecting all participants in news - both journalists and their audiences - with a sense of responsibility and a promising investment vehicle, perhaps, for funds applying an ethical screen to media companies.

5. Appendix &endash; The Middle East

During 1999 and 2000 members of Conflict and Peace Forums held training dialogues with journalists from Middle East countries, assembled using local contacts by the Danish ngo, Severin, and funded by the Danish overseas aid ministry, Danida.

Professionals from Israel, the Palestinian Authority area, Jordan and Egypt discussed the formation of a network for mutual help and support, and ways in which their reporting could enhance the prospects and understanding for peace in the region. They produced a manual with a chapter by the current author, reproduced here, on representations of the Middle East in international media.

Middle East - the view in international media

The Middle East is one of the most important postings for the world's media, with Jerusalem one of a handful of 'must-have' bureaux along with Washington, Moscow, Asia (Beijing or Hong Kong) and Europe (London or Brussels). What predominant view of Middle Eastern affairs do readers, listeners and viewers of international media receive?

Early in 2000, Middle East correspondents were filing background feature material on some of the questions at issue for Israeli and Syrian negotiators, then meeting for face-to-face talks in the USA. The Irish Times, London's Guardian and The Scotsman were three among many newspapers to focus on the politics of water as one important factor.

David Horovitz of the Irish Times had discovered that "While Israel was talking peace with Syria in West Virginia earlier in the week, at home its national water company was quietly drilling new wells to access underground aquifers in the Golan Heights, pumping out millions of cubic metres of water that would otherwise have flowed into Syria."

The effect of this is to configure the conflict as a tug-of-war, characterised in the phrase, "would otherwise have flowed into Syria." Any inch gained by one side - in this case, millions of cubic metres of water - can only be the same inch lost by the other, a narrative which requires a clear winner and an equally unambiguous loser.

The word, "quietly" suggests a hidden agenda to scupper the chances of a settlement, leading Horovitz to conclude: "This revelation is likely to make the already tough negotiations about the Heights even trickier for Syria, at a moment when Israeli opposition to any withdrawal from Syrian territory is growing."

The Guardian's Ilene Prusher filed a fascinating dispatch from Ma'ale Gamla in the Golan about an expatriate English family, the Eastons, who had emigrated in the early 1970s. The "rolling, green hills" and "damp smell of a recent rain" made their adoptive home eerily reminiscent of the Old Country, Prusher wrote. The idea of handing the Golan back to Syria was "a hard concept for the Eastons to swallow, and one they say they will fight as best they can."

Prusher penetrated beyond this position to enquire into the issues, the goals of the parties as they bear upon the lived experience of people in the conflict arena, in this case the Eastons themselves. Mr Easton was studying for a PhD in fish ecology and spent his days "surveying the quality of fish life in the sea of Galilee at the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Company."

He too was worried about water supply. Prusher quotes him: "I can see the Syrians building large pumping stations or taking water from the Jordan after a peace agreement is reached, and nobody will be able to stop them... That could very seriously affect our water, and 40% of the nation's supply is from the Kinneret [Sea of Galilee]. In an area where water is of major strategic value, it should be that they have absolutely no access to the Kinneret or the Jordan in the peace agreement."

To focus on the Eastons and their concerns in isolation represents a set of newsgathering and reporting decisions which also configure the conflict as a tug-of-war. One party stands to gain access to the Jordan and the Sea of Galilee - the other to lose it, as Mr Easton avers. While Irish Times readers might have gleaned the impression that Israel wanted to 'steal Syria's water', Guardian readers could have come away thinking that Syria wanted to 'steal Israel's water'.

The interesting perspective comes from reporting both at the same time, as I have done here. If all parties - Israel, Syria, the Golan residents - have concerns about losing 'their' water, then it seems to make less sense to seek the emergence of one 'winner' as a solution. We are more likely to see the conflict as a shared set of problems requiring a shared solution - as in the

Israeli-Palestinian track where water is one of the final status issues, as yet unresolved but at least framed in such a way as to acknowledge the common challenge facing the parties to devise a sustainable water regime for the whole region.

There was another clue to this in the Scotsman report, by Matt Rees from Hamat Gader and focussing on one individual, Yoav Tsur, who made his living by harnessing another common resource, in a wind farm. Interestingly he was picked out because he represented a breach in the bipolar conflict model, an Israeli citizen and Golan resident who had nevertheless been campaigning for a settlement in which the territory would revert to Syrian control.

As Rees notes, most Golan residents voted for Ehud Barak as Israeli PM, despite his promise to make "painful concessions" on the Golan. Mr Tsur's son was a commando about to go to the front line in Lebanon, giving him another reason to support peace: "We are fighting a stupid war in Lebanon just to avoid giving back the Golan," he tells Rees.

Perhaps most interestingly of all, Rees reports that Mr Tsur's home is near "the hot springs at Hamat Gader... Bathers have reclined in the sulphurous water since the Romans built the first baths here at the southern tip of the Golan Heights. It is the biggest single tourist attraction for Israelis. More than a million come here each year. But even many members of the kibbutzes that own the baths are ready to pack their bags, if it means peace."

So this is a water resource, a much-loved amenity, which cannot be packaged up and taken away by one side or another - to retain its value, it must stay where it is. Access to it after a settlement may remain to be resolved, but it cannot be 'stolen' in the sense of being removed. Any attempt by anyone to do so would simply destroy it.

Taken together, these three reports place many parties to this conflict on the same 'map' - Israel and Syria as represented by their governments, meeting in the US; Golan residents; the families of Israeli soldiers on active service in Lebanon; owners and users of the hot springs. To do this, and to enquire beyond their positions into the lived experiences of each, effectively configures the conflict as a 'round table' where problems and solutions must be shared.

Taken individually, each of the first two reports, from the Irish Times and London Guardian, places only two parties on the map. The only shape connecting two points is a straight line, so the conflict can only be configured as a tug-of-war. The third piece, from the Scotsman, is more interesting, but as yet untypical of representations of the Middle East in international media. A good reason for continuing contact between the most aware and sophisticated players in local media and representatives of international news organisations.

References

Johan Galtung's work on conflict analysis and transformation and peace studies runs to over a hundred books &endash; one of the most radically important intellectual projects of the twentieth century. An introduction to his thinking, together with directions to further reading, can be found at the website of the TRANSCEND network of invited scholars and practitioners for peace and development: www.transcend.org

Jan Oberg's observations on the Kosovo conflict come from his recent pamphlet Preventing Peace. This and the highly illuminating set of media releases from his Transnational Futures Foundation can be found at www.transnational.org

Hazel Henderson's powerful and stimulating work on the shortcomings of classical economics and the need for something better is perhaps best represented by one of her many books: The Politics of the Solar Age (Knowledge Systems inc, Indianapolis, Indiana, 1988).

About the Author

Jake Lynch currently works as a freelance correspondent for Sky News. During the Kosovo Crisis he was based at NATO headquarters. Recently co-presented training dialogues with local journalists in the Middle East, Indonesia, Norway, Germany and the Caucasus, introducing them to ideas contained in this report. Author of What Are Journalists For? Former Sydney Correspondent, The Independent. Later this year will teach an MA module at Sydney University, and train UN staff in Geneva.

About the publisher

CONFLICT & PEACE FORUMS Taplow Court, Bucks, UK

Is a 'peace think tank' offering forums all year round to generate new ideas and practical approaches to conflict transformation and its application to other professions. The forums are aimed at governmental and non-governmental groups, conflict workers, journalists, policymakers, economists and the business community who come together in a variety of fora to discuss conflict and to create a practical model of cooperation for local and global interests. Primarily Conflict and Peace Forums are an independent think-tank for finding creative solutions to end centuries of war in the ultimate search for a Millennium of Peace.

CONFLICT AND PEACE FORUMS INCLUDE:

Conferences
Publications
Training courses at Taplow Court
Training courses in conflict zones e.g Indonesia, Middle East
Academic courses
International video conferencing
Workshops
Round table discussions
Media Consultancy

Recent Conferences:

May, 2000 - Corporate Citizenship in the 21st Century What can Business do for Peace and Sustainable Development? With Professor Johan Galtung, father of peace studies; Hazel Henderson, author 'Building a Win Win World' and 'The Politics of the Solar Age; Anita Roddick: founder of The Body Shop and New Academy of Business.

March, 2000 - Between the Wars: Role of the media and international community in incipient and unfashionable conflicts. With Nick Stockton, Oxfam; Tim Judah; Tom de Waal. In conjunction with Twenty-First Century Trust.

August, 1999 - After Violence: Reconstruction, Reconciliation and Resolution, a training course with Professor Johan Galtung

September 1999, News for a New Century. Examining the role of news in the cycle of events driving the development of conflicts. With: Will Hutton, then Editor-in-chief, the Observer; Danny Schechter, award-winning US TV producer, executive producer of Globalvision and founder of The Media Channel Internet supersite www.mediachannel.org ; aid worker Larry Hollingworth & Phillip Knightley, author, The First Casualty.

Some assessments of previous publications, the Peace Journalism Option and What Are Journalists For?:

"Journalists have the power to entrench divisions between people or to contribute to healing them. This highly original document contains many fascinating proposals for discharging the responsibility that brings." Clare Short MP, Secretary of State for International Development.

"Much the most interesting thing about journalism I've read for a long time." George Eykyn, BBC correspondent.

"A brilliant production. I would support it completely." Adam Curle, professor emeritus, Bradford University.

CONFLICT & PEACE FORUMS
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Maidenhead SL6 0ER
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Tele +44.1628.591 239 / 233
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