The Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, the New York University and Columbia University co-sponsored a symposium in April 1999 entitled "Journalists Covering Conflict: Norms of Conduct". It provided an opportunity for professionals from the international news media and academia to discuss how norms and training can contribute to more effective news coverage of conflict situations. This article addresses one of the major issues that arose during the symposium: the tension between the news media's pursuit of objectivity and the ethical challenges of covering conflict.

The rise of objectivity as a journalistic ethic occurred in the last 60 years. Journalists, seeking to improve their status as purveyors of information, found that their credibility increased with non-partisan reporting. Objectivity and related norms of neutrality and fairness are now considered inviolable by journalists as part of their profession's commitment to discovering and reporting the truth. But they are also impossible ideals. Reporting is constantly influenced by the ongoing subjective decisions a reporter must make, such as whom to interview, which quotes to include, and what pictures to discard.

UN Photo/Janel Schroeder

Objectivity is an interesting choice as a value for a profession that has no other established standards of credentials or training. In their observance of objectivity, journalists can be grouped into three camps. The first assigns a strictly passive, neutral role for journalists; the second believes that reporting can be objective and create an incentive to take action; and the third abandons objectivity as the core value in war reporting.

The first camp defines objectivity in journalism as a form of neutrality, a "fly on the wall". According to Leslie Gelb, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, "journalists are in the business of news, not truth. When journalists forget that, they do very misleading and destructive things. News is what you can honestly find out that day. This is a constant process that bows to reality and doesn't impose any view on that reality."

The view of the journalist as a passive observer has been challenged on many grounds. Scientists question the ability of any human to be objective, and others question the moral dimensions of passivity. Robert Manoff, Director of the Center for War, Peace, and the News Media at New York University, develops an argument on the criminality of the passive role of journalists in violent conflict situations in his paper Telling the Truth to Peoples at Risk: Some Introductory Thoughts on Media and Conflict. "Experts have argued that bystanders play a role in propagating genocide - and journalism is, in fact, an institutionalized bystander of the world. If journalists do not act, they are contributing to the violence of the world."

The second camp of journalists claims objectivity as an ideal, but ignores the contradiction in its call to action. "What I think a reporter ought to be doing, and what we ought to be training reporters to do, is to lay the facts in such a way that it creates an incentive to take action", comments Seymour Topping, Sanpaolo Professor of International Journalism at Columbia University and Administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes at Columbia School of Journalism. In fact, most of the journalism community defines and rewards success not as the provision of accurate information, but in the way that information moves the public to action. Accordingly, news "fails" when there is no corresponding public reaction.

The third camp of journalists has abandoned objectivity - either permanently or because they believe the moral imperatives of a situation warrant it. In a 1996 interview in the Guardian, CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour was unequivocal. "Objectivity, that great journalistic buzzword, means giving all sides a fair hearing - not treating all sides the same - particularly when all sides are not the same. When you are in a situation like Bosnia, you are an accomplice - an accomplice to genocide."

Similar is the view of Roy Gutman, a reporter for Newsday who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on Serb detention camps, explaining his own shift from objectivity: "I do not believe the fairness doctrine applies equally to victims and perpetrators." Some reject their role as objective observer in order to fulfil what they perceive to be a moral duty as a human witness. But there are still others who maintain that objectivity is not a valid goal. Obviously, there is a clear lack of consensus.

Take the case of Ed Vulliamy, reporter for the Guardian and the London Observer, who chose to testify as a witness to crimes against humanity after the peace settlement in Bosnia. "We wrote about it, but it was not enough", said Mr. Vulliamy referring to his story about Serbian concentration camps in Bosnia. "We were supposed to have had such a great impact on the conduct of the war, but we did not." On the other hand, Edward Girardet, editor of Crosslines Global Report, in his paper "Strengthening Lifeline Media in Regions of Conflict," writes: "It is more important to be as accurate and honest as possible in one's assessment of a given situation than to pretend that one is being objective. Indications suggest detachment in conflicts is in practice impossible, and objectivity is an unattainable aspiration."

Each journalist defines his or her own role and responsibility. Recognizing these inconsistencies, a small number of journalists and media professionals are working through organizations, such as The International Center for Humanitarian Reporting, the Media Peace Centre and The Center for War, Peace, and the News Media, to develop standards. These organizations are developing training programmes and norms of conduct based on a standard of accuracy and the recognition that journalists are active participants in the events they cover. The usefulness of a code of conduct is limited because there is no formal process by which norms can be established and enforced.

Journalists are wary of such codes out of valid concern that they could be used to impede the freedom of the press. But the complexities of conflict situations in this post-cold-war era, the inability of journalists to be knowledgeable about every situation they cover, and the recognition of the role journalists play in conflict situations require a reconsideration of the values and norms of the professional news media.

Two fundamental points should form the basis of future discussion. First, an understanding that journalists are active participants in the events they are covering and that this participation has an impact on the reporting, as well as on the conflict itself. As participants, journalists are accountable to the subjects of their reporting, as well as the audience, and must consider seriously the long-term positive and negative impacts of their reporting. Second, journalists must make their audiences aware of restrictions on reporting, both physical and observational restrictions. "Honest journalism needs to be open about its 'observational biases' just as scientists must recognize in some way their 'observational hypotheses'," wrote ABC correspondent William Blakemore in a 1992 St. John's Law Review article. A good example of this is Martin Bell's explanation of the emotional pressures of reporting during the Bosnian conflict: "All the reporters who work regularly on the Bosnian beat are at least privately interventionist. Surrounded by so much misery and destruction, it is humanly difficult to be anything else."

Such a statement provides the audience with a refreshingly honest and human understanding of the tragic phenomenon that is war. "Moral life is a struggle to see-a struggle against the desire to deny the testimony of one's own eyes and ears. The struggle to believe one's senses is at the heart of the process of moving from voyeurism to commitment", writes Michael Ignatieff in his book, The Warrior's Honor: Ethics, War and the Modern Conscience. Journalists must come to terms with their own responsibility as the eyes and ears of their audience, providing them with the accurate and honest information that will allow them to move from being spectators to violence, to actors in the resolution and prevention of violent conflict.

'Impunity Is an Illusion'

Secretary-General Kofi Annan's message on World Press Freedom Day:

Press freedom is a cornerstone of human rights. It holds Governments responsible for their acts, and serves as a warning to all that impunity is an illusion. It advances knowledge and understanding within and between countries. It helps peoples everywhere appreciate what unites us and not just what divides us. Still, there are some who question the value of freedom of speech to their societies. There are some who argue that it threatens stability and endangers progress. There are even some who consider freedom of speech a foreign imposition and not the indigenous expression of every people's demand for freedom.

This argument, however, is never made by the people, but by Governments; never by the powerless, but by the powerful; never by the voiceless, but by those who allow only their own voices to be heard.

Let us put this argument, once and for all, to the only test that matters: Let every people choose freely. Would they want to know more or know less? To be heard or be silenced? To stand up or kneel down? Freedom of speech is a right to be fought for, not a blessing to be wished for. But it is more than that: it is the essential vehicle for the exchange of ideas between nations and cultures. And without that exchange and interaction, there can be no true understanding or lasting cooperation.

On this last World Press Freedom Day of the twentieth century, I salute the courage and commitment of journalists everywhere to bring us the truth, so that freedom and cooperation may flourish in every country, for every people, of every creed.