Peace Journalism Proposal

        I would like to propose a peace journalism project for the country of Nigeria. There are three key goals for this project. The first goal would be to teach Nigerian journalists the ethical standards of conflict reporting, and show them how to utilize peace journalism to cover stories without further escalating violence. The second goal would be educate journalists to have a better understanding about both Christianity and Islam, along with the similarities of each religion and how to cover conflict regarding religion. The third goal would be to create a lasting peace effort after the project is concluded by creating peace groups. 


      The focus of the project is to prevent further religious violence in Nigeria between the northern Muslim citizens and the southern Christian populace. Some of the religious violence has been caused by the media’s lack of understanding or negligence, for instance the article written in 2002 in the This Day paper regarding the prophet Muhammad and the Miss World Pageant contestants. The article sparked riots resulting in more than 100 deaths and 3000 homeless. The peace journalism project aims to prevent any further religious violence started or escalated by the media. Moreover, the focus is on preventing religious violence because it is rampant in Nigeria with numerous bombings, and riots. Preventing this violence could potentially save thousands of lives, homes and millions of dollars in property loss in the future.


       The project would take course over a period of three months, and would begin in May of 2013. The project would contain ten workshops with 20 total seminars. Ten seminars would be teaching journalists about peace journalism. The other ten seminars would be teaching journalists about Christianity and Islam, similarities of the two, and how to report stories involving religious conflict. Each workshop would consist of three days. Day one would be peace journalism training, and day two would be religious awareness training. On day three, community leaders and the public would be invited to begin a peace club in their area where they would be responsible for monitoring media and ensuring they see peaceful responsible reporting. Our media trainers would set out in the community to accomplish this task as well as go to media houses and try to establish a written code of ethics for the outlets. We believe twenty seminars is an appropriate number of trainings to teach journalists all the needed information at the 10 different states we will be traveling to within a three month period. 


      The locations for the workshops are Kano, Yobe, Niger, Oyo, Imo, Lagos, Adam Awa, Taraba, Kaduna and Abuja. We will hold seminars here because these states are great representations of the country. We have included both majority Islam and Christian states to create balance. We also included locations from central, north, south, east and west Nigeria to increase the reach of our project.  Most of these states have experienced religious violence, for instance Kaduna was the state where religious violence erupted in 2002 and Lagos was the state where the incriminating newspaper was based out of.


        The possible participants would be journalists from newspapers including but not limited to the Guardian, This Day, Daily Trust, and New Nigerian and News Watch. These papers are located in widespread parts of Nigeria. Other television participants may include reporters from NN24, Nigerian Television Authority, Silverbird TV, Minaj TV, and Galaxy TV. These stations are also located throughout Nigeria and are both privately owned and state run. We would also invite radio journalist participants from FRCN, Voice of Nigeria, Ray Power, and Freedom Radio. These stations are also dispersed throughout Nigeria and are both privately owned and state run. We want to train this group of journalists because they are a great representation of the media force in Nigeria. By training journalists in newspaper, television and radio we can extend our projects reach, and create a bigger impact and more possibilities for peace. By incorporating these participants in our seminars we can teach media personnel peace journalism skills that will be taken all over Nigeria to be put into action over several mediums.


         Possible media trainers could include Steven Youngblood, a Communications Professor and the Director for the Center of Global Peace Journalism at Park University. He has taught several peace journalism seminars in various parts of Africa as well peace journalism classes in the United States. Another possible media trainer could be Dr. Habil Klaus Paehler head of the KAS office in Nigeria. KAS organization has taught conflict sensitive reporting skills in northern Nigeria previously. Possible religious awareness trainers could be Pastor James Wuye and Imam Muhammad Ashata. They were former enemies who are now working together for reconciliation among Christians and Muslims in Nigeria.  These men represent each religion individually but together they represent the peace that can be possible through education. They believe “peace will be achieved through education and dialog.” We believe they would be the perfect duo to teach our religious awareness seminars throughout Nigeria. 


         We will achieve the first goal of the campaign by teaching ten thorough peace journalism seminars to a wide variety of journalists throughout ten different states in Nigeria. The media trainers we have proposed are very skilled and knowledgeable teachers who have had experience leading and teaching peace journalism in Africa and Nigeria.  We will reach the second goal by teaching ten detailed religious awareness seminars to the same journalists in the ten different states. The Imam and the Pastor we have chosen to teach the religious workshops have great knowledge about their religions and are open to teaching others, exposing misconceptions, and working for peace in a collaborative way. This will allow journalists to learn and enhance their understanding so they can produce more informed reports. Finally, we will meet our last goal by establishing the peace groups in the communities. These groups will act as a watchdog and protect peace and ensure it continues in the future. We will also ensure lasting peace journalism efforts with the written codes of conduct which we will try installed at local media outlets.  With a combination of these efforts and careful planning all goals will be met in the three months we have set out for this project.

Peace Journalism in Nigeria and Content Critique

As with many things in life there are usually several shades of grey, and that is what I have found when it comes to peace journalism reporting in Nigeria. Some sources I have come across say that the reporting in Nigeria is the most vibrant and well done in all of Africa. Other sources say that the media in Nigeria is irresponsible, sensational and outright lies and gives misinformation. Having never been to Nigeria for myself or spoken with Nigerian reporters it is hard to say exactly what I believe to be true.

One study done by Uzoechi Nwagbaran says, “In spite of the challenges and convulsions that beleaguer the Nigerian media, it has been a veritable platform for the dissemination of information, education of the citizenry, molding of  people’s thought and criticism of the state. To me this sounds like a great foundation for peace journalism, journalism that is done for the people. Another study by David O. Edeani says journalism in Nigeria “tries to act as a motivator of the people to rise above their differences, and even as a conciliator for the warring parties.” This also sounds like a fundamental element of peace journalism, an entity that doesn’t take sides and offers a way to facilitate dialog to possibly end conflict. 

However, on the other hand there are also many sources that contradict those statements. According to an article titled The Media, The People And Politics In Nigeria: A Disconnect  it says “It is a fact that headlines are unnecessarily sensational, media houses report half-truth, misinform and engage in outright reportage of lies if the price is good.”  Also, a political organization Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) based out of Germany has similar beliefs.  KAS is an organization who says they are “aimed at training journalists to enable truthful reporting practices in a sensitive manner that does not incite additional violent conflict”. They say, “Conflicts in Nigeria often emerge along ethnic or religious cleavages. In the past, tensions have often been fostered by irresponsible news coverage that provoked further escalation.” 

Upon my own examination of a newspaper article using our class rubric as a guide, I’ve established the writing to be war journalism. I evaluated an article titled 56 Killed in Yobe Market Attack written by a journalist for the National Mirror newspaper. The writing contains emotional words such as heinous and despicable. Even the opening line reads “It was a bloody day in Potiskum.” These words would definitely stir up emotions in a place that is already on edge. The victims were labeled “victims” many times and were never reached for comment.  Only what had been done to them was reported. The story never gave them a platform to say what they thought or to offer solutions. It made them seem helpless. The article did not use demonizing language and just used vague terms like robbers or attackers. 

This story also made opinions seem like facts. For instance, one source said 56 were killed and two other sources confirmed that only 34 were killed. However, the writer uses the 56 killed in the headline and treats the 54 deaths as if it were fact. It also said “scores of others were injured.” This is irresponsible reporting because how many people constitutes a score? Also, eyewitness accounts were treated as facts as well.  

This piece is very one sided with only one view portrayed. The only people that were interviewed in this story were public officials. There is no comment from either side of the conflict or regular people. The story also spreads official propaganda from police and government entities.  They say that security needs to be stepped up to stop the violence; they don’t promote any other solutions. To me, it wasn’t exactly clear if the writer’s opinion was included in the article but the suffering was only shown on one side. The article continually described the attack and suffering of the victims and their property and livestock. The article did say that the attackers may have acted out of retaliation, but it did not give any insight about the suffering on the other side or how they were wronged previously. It split the parties into good guys and bad guys.

The underlying issues were not addresses whatsoever and the blame was actually put on the security personnel. The article said that they need to step up their intelligence to keep things like this from happening. It seems that they were to blame for not putting a stop to the violence and that if they had more intelligence these kinds of attacks would cease. Peace proposals were never mentioned as a way to fix the situation. The article made it seem that peace could only be possible if the police force was better. There were no alternative solutions given and the story never mentioned the similarities of the two groups or really even the differences. That seemed to be implied. 

I found that the television news of Nigeria to be war journalism as well. I critiqued a news report from NTA News 24, a state run operation that broadcasts in English. This report was about the very same market attack in Yobe. The general topic of the report was destruction and suffering. The only person who was interviewed was Governor Ibarahim Gadam of Yobe State. There were no outside opinions or views to balance the story. Peace prospects were not mentioned and it seemed the only solution to the violence was more security. The video contains some raw footage of the burned market and security personnel walking through. It showed burned livestock and property as well as people lying in hospital beds. The video follows the Governor visiting victims in the hospital and is mostly about him and what he thinks about it all.

Peace Journalism Content Analysis Rubric --  (56 killed in Yobe Market Attack)
Written/spoken reports
		1=Never	2=Sometimes	3=Often
Language
Inflammatory/emotional language used			2
Victimizing language used			2
Demonizing/name calling language used		1
Writing/reporting
Opinions treated as facts				3
Historical wrongs mentioned		1
Writer's opinion/position is clear (one sided)			2
Only "one side" interviewed/quoted				3
Story spreads official propaganda				3
Info/quotes taken out of context			2
Event				3
Suffering/"criminal acts" by only one side shown				3
Covers mostly violence, not underlying issues
Parties
Blame assigned to one party				3
Solutions
Peace proposals ignored or dismissed				3
Story dwells on differences; shuns similarities				3
SCALE:
Peace Journalism=14-19 points
Some characteristics of both peace and war journalism=20-29
War Journalism-30 or more Total 34 =War Journalism

(Video- Potkisum Market Attack) Visuals--video and photo
		1=Never	2=Sometimes	3=Often
General topic is suffering				3
General topic is destruction				3
Subject—Military officials; Government officials				3
Image is culturally insensitive/mocking		1
Subjects are primarily military/political leaders				3
Subject is held in contempt by photographer		1
Editing: Video is raw/unedited; or still is edited			2
to change meaning of the original photo
Images taken out of context/don't reflect reality		1
SCALE:
Peace Journalism=8-10 points
Some characteristics of both peace and war journalism=11-15
War Journalism-16 or more                        Total 17= War Journalism

Nigeria Media Overview

According to research done by the Freedom House Organization, media in Nigeria is partly free. The media sources in Nigeria include newspaper, television and radio, with a majority of the public receiving information from radio broadcasts. Freedom House says the media is vibrant and lively with most media outlets being independently owned and operated. Internet use occurs among about 29 percent of the population and is not restricted by the government.

 Nigeria was guaranteed freedom of speech and expression under constitutional law in 1999; however this is not always the case. Journalists in Nigeria frequently receive threats from many entities and in several ways. State and non-state actors have tried to suppress criticism by threatening journalists into silence. State security agents occasionally arrest journalists, confiscate newspapers and harass vendors. This usually happens when they are covering stories involving separatist and communal violence and corruption. Public officials and authorities often publicly condemn journalists and media outlets that criticize them.

Nigeria is a very ethnically diverse country with a majority of the population being split between Christians and Muslims. The twelve northern Muslim states operate under Sharia law (Islamic Law) and courts. This, along with the executive branch of government in Nigeria is a major obstacle to media freedom. Sharia law is very conservative and condemns freedom of expression. Under these laws libel is a criminal offense and Sharia statutes impose strict and severe penalties for media offenses. Yet, Nigeria’s judicial branch continues to support media freedom, and denied the restrictive Nigerian Press Council Act.

Despite the legal obstacles, Nigeria is also very physically dangerous place to be a journalist. Media workers have suffered several attacks as of late. Three journalists were murdered in 2010 with no arrests made. Later in 2010, four journalists were kidnapped held for ransom, and later released.  Bombings and arson attacks on newspaper buildings have also occurred as well. Journalists have received threatening text messages and letters.  Most of the threats come from political party candidates and the police.

Bribery and corruption are rampant among the media industry, with many reporters receiving brown envelops upon arriving at scenes. Media taxes and licensing fees are very high as well, limiting the media’s capabilities. The economy in Nigeria is dominated by oil exports and wealth lies in the hands of a few elite. Most of the country is very poor with most of the violence occurring because of religious regional ethnic differences and intolerance as well as unequal distribution of oil revenue.