Humanitarian Journalism
On the fourth of February 2016, London organized a high profile conference (Supporting Syria, 2016) on the Syrian crisis. In its fourth annual edition, the event aimed to attract funds and pledges to finance the humanitarian support of Syrian refugees in their host countries.
From a media perspective, such an event presents obviously an opportunity for coverage. But we would be interested here to reflect upon such questions as: How such an event becomes newsworthy? And how is this reflected in news coverage?
Also, “it is difficult to pinpoint a single factor that attracts media attention” (McLaughlin, 2002, p. 187), by looking at a series of outlets coverage we are able to detect differences.
A recent report from the Ethical Journalism Network has highlighted the character schizophrenic of the media regarding refugees. As the report shows, a single event can redirect the perspective of the media radically. Up to August 2015, refugees were frequently referred to from a negative, often hatred, angle. But the event of the young boy Aylan Kurdi whose dead body was found on a beach prompted a shift in the media coverage almost overnight (Ethical Journalism Network, 2015).
With such a high profile fundraising event, a multitude of coverage scenarios are possible. In order to better understand, I have decided to split this paper in two parts. The first one focuses on the UK outlets coverage of the conference. As we will see, within a national perspective, there are different reasons why an event can become newsworthy. In the second part, I take a similar reasoning, but from an international angle, looking at how foreign news outlets have decided to cover the event.
Liberal democracies, per nature, “ensure that events can be examined from a multiplicity of points of view” (Philips, 2015, p. 25). The Support Syrians conference was a high profile event organized in London and hosted by several other countries. The aim was to fundraise and answer the call of the United Nation for £9 billion in order to support refugees in Syria’s neighboring countries. From a news coverage perspective, the fundraising event became domestically newsworthy for several reasons. As The Guardian tried to make the most out of the fact the event took place in London, the BBC largely focused on the humanitarian angle. The Mail followed a web directed strategy, while The Sun covered it from a more controversial perspective.
An example often taken in ethical journalism circles is the one of ancient tribes who would select messengers to be send to gather accurate information and retell it for the benefit of the group. The point being for the society to know what it cannot see with its own eyes (Foreman, 2010). This is the kind of logic we find behind The Guardian (Weaver, Tran, & Townsend, 2016) coverage. For its online version, the newspaper opted for a series of live updates along the day, highlighting the strong points as the event took place. In this sense, the news outlet offered a large coverage, spanning from the Prime Minister’s speech to the longer discussions regarding the education of children in refugee camps. The BBC also covered the event (East, 2016), but decided to focus on the humanitarian angle, highlighting particularly the pledges, explaining why so much money is needed and how it will be used.
The Mail Online (Sculthorpe, 2016) has given the most extensive coverage of the event making use of a large variety of multimedia tools including quotes from the conference main speakers, videos and a large collection of photos. Also, it has been argued that “the success of the UK’s Daily Mail in attracting a massive international online audience is entirely predicated on giving readers whatever they are most likely to click on” (Philips, 2015, p. 6), this would explain why they have covered the event form such a large perspective, including as many famous names as possible and trying to reach the largest audience as possible.
Also it has been pointed that “reportorial perspective can be shaped by technology in important ways” (Matheson & Allan, 2009, p. 28), the Mail Online seems to have opted for a strategy where a maximum number of people would have an interest in reading the event coverage. From an international perspective, this kind of coverage ensures a larger audience, which confirms the overall online strategy of the outlet.
The Sun also decided to cover the conference, and personally I think it gave the worst coverage of the event, used as propaganda, and misinforming on the role and responsibilities of the UK in the refugee crisis (SABEY, 2016). The kind of message being sent in such coverage can only reach a specific share of the population, and it is politically biased as it took position against the refugees, and tried to put forward Britain’s leading role in the refugee crisis. It is fairly true that journalism has entered a phase in which coverage is “inseparable from that of policy substance” (McNair, 2000, p. 171).
Regarding such issues as refugees, it has been argued that “ just as the normative influences of the news can reinforce feelings of belonging to a community they can also contribute symmetrically to the exclusion of certain characters” (Conboy, 2007, p. 175).
From an international perspective, the importance of an event, and the reasons why it becomes newsworthy can vary greatly. Here I take three examples as “national cultures, polities and societies shape the practice and performance of foreign reporting throughout the world” (Williams, 2011, p. 22). Al Jazeera gives us more of the Arab perspective, which when it comes to Syrian refugees goes often unheard. I, then, decided to take a look at the French coverage of the conference, and finally a critical perspective from the development news website Humanosphere.
Al Jazeera, through its article, puts forward the very important issue of aid dependency, asking about the relevance of the aid system as we know it. The Al Jazeera article provides a positive coverage of the story, emphasizing the fact that it is an opportunity to “offer a more sustainable solution than creating aid dependency in the shadow of conflicts” (Denselow, 2016). Over the last few years, Al Jazeera has developed its online operation to a high level, to become an important player in the international news sector. Its strength comes from the fact that it is an important news outlet which does not originate from the West. Also, “the nature of online communication means different users will have different experiences of a story” (Craig, 2011, p. 79). An issue such as aid dependency owed to be discussed and covered. It seems legitimate that many people concerned about the refugee crisis will want to know about this alternative perspective.
In France, Le Monde covered the event from a more ‘French perspective’, trying to justify France’s lesser contribution by its involvement in peace talks and focus on the root causes of the conflict (Bernard, 2016). Also Paris and London have had very different attitudes toward the crisis, different public opinions in the respective countries and different political debates and objectives. Le Monde’s coverage reflects these differences, as France plays a different role within the European Union and internationally.
Finally, embracing a more critical framework, the writer of the article on Humanosphere (Murphy, 2016) gives a more engaging piece in terms of the context of the event, particularly focusing on the fact that the previous three editions of the conference have all fallen short of fundraising enough, and the international community is now playing catch up. The author demonstrates the high probability that despite all the pledges, the response will remain underfunded (Murphy, 2016). “While it cannot be assumed that any journalistic ethics are universal” (Markham, 2011, p. 96), regarding such a complex issue, I think it is important for some independent journalists to make the effort to look at the other side of the story. Again, here the author subject-crosses with Al Jazeera in highlighting the obsolete character of our actual aid system.
Many different reasons can make an event newsworthy and the various news outlets often tune their coverage according to a large variety of political opinions and agendas. As we have seen, from a national perspective, the UK news outlets have covered the event differently. The Guardian and the BBC have tried to remain neutral on the issue but did not offered a critical, or alternative, view. The Mail Online followed a well established web strategy, aiming for a maximum of readers. The Sun, decided to scrap objectivity all together and tried to position itself as the voice of a certain category of the British people. “Journalistic ethics vary considerably across global and organizational constraints” (Knight & Cook, 2013, p. 132) and, as we have seen, international coverage in the second part focused on different angles. Al Jazeera took the opportunity to cover the event to highlight the need for an aid revolution, while Le Monde offered background on France’s position regarding the crisis, only the Humanosphere’s coverage really decided to highlight issues and criticize the conference on the principle that it is the whole aid system which might be obsolete. In conclusion, I would add that it has been an interesting exercise as it has highlighted some of the issues surrounding humanitarian disasters coverage and the various bias within the web press.
Bibliography
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