Jake Lynch
Director, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at University of Sydney
A Global Standard for Conflict Reporting: Resolving the Structure/Agency Debate in Peace Journalism?

Associate Professor Jake Lynch is Director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney. He is the author of Debates in Peace Journalism (Sydney University Press, 2008), as well as numerous other books, book chapters and articles. He convened the inaugural peace journalism commission of the International Peace Research Association, and is an Executive member of the Sydney Peace Foundation. Before taking up an academic career, Jake was a professional journalist, having worked as a presenter for BBC World television news, a Political Correspondent for Sky News and the Sydney correspondent for the Independent.

Jake’s talk explores Peace Journalism and a global standard for reporting conflict.
Journalism is unaccountable because unassessable, according to the Oxford philosopher, Onora O'Neill, delivering a BBC Reith Lecture. Many involved in conflicts round the world have cause for complaint about media influence, from Rwandan hate radio to the distortions of the New York Times and Washington Post in covering the debate over the invasion of Iraq. Primemovers in Radio Milles Collines have been tried for war crimes; the two US newspapers had the good grace to apologise. But how could accountability be increased? Not by strengthening regulation, perhaps, but by devising a global standard for assessing the reporting of conflict. Jake Lynch puts forward the credentials of peace journalism, as the basis for such a standard, and explains how it could work.

Archive