By focusing on violence and its victims, the media tends to make conflicts worse, says Nordic Africa Institute (NAI) guest researcher, Ada Peter. She is critical of traditional war journalism.
In her research, Peter analyses articles on violent conflicts in Africa, with a special focus on protracted conflicts like Darfur and the Boko Haram violence in Nigeria. She looks at the international media headlines, what kinds of pictures illustrate the stories and what actors are quoted in the news. This analysis reveals a great deal – mostly about what is not reported.
Media stories are incomplete
What is left out and why are other things included? According to Peter, this is the big question one always should ask when coming across a media product. Media stories are always incomplete and unreliable for decision making. Journalists always select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in the news.
The media logic for this critical gap of information dissemination is that the more spectacular violence, the better.
“Leaving out or including certain details may actually exacerbate conflicts. For instance, if media reports focus on Boko Haram shooting soldiers, this might lead to a counterattack by the army – and by that more civilians are likely to be hurt.”
Peace journalism
In Peter’s view, journalism should highlight peace negotiations instead of recent attacks, and instead of simply reporting body counts, it should provide thorough background information on the origins of conflicts.
“This could ease conflicts. Combating parties as well as observers would get another picture of what is going on, and be less keen to escalate their violent efforts.
“However, too often, media houses train and shape how individual journalists write and tell a story that will be published.
NGOs follow the media
“Humanitarian organisations are also affected by warped media coverage of conflicts. If the media don’t report on a conflict, then it doesn’t exist, and vice versa: if media do report on a conflict, then NGOs (non governmental organisations) get funding more easily for an intervention.
“But by then it becomes what I call a ‘late intervention’; they should have intervened before the conflict escalated to the level where the media finds it interesting enough.”
Media illiteracy
Peter has a background as a TV journalist in Lagos. Her PhD was a study in media illiteracy regarding alcohol commercials.
She explored whether people actually believe that drinking a particular gin will give them a new car or a pretty girlfriend, or whatever else the billboard or TV ad suggests.
At first, the overwhelming majority of her test group in a secondary school in Lagos could not see through the alcohol producer’s advertisement. It took several “media literacy treatment” classes to transform these students into media literates.
“If it is so difficult to decode a commercial, how hard will it be to understand that a news article is not necessarily true, or at least not the only truth,” Peter concludes.
Children among 50 migrants dead
The latest migrant drowning tragedy in the Mediterranean claimed at least 50 lives, 40 more than first thought, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) says.
Italy’s coastguard rescued 127 people and recovered 10 bodies after a boat capsized off Sicily when the people on board rushed to one side of the vessel in a stampede to get onto the arriving coastguard boat.
Interviews with the survivors have since revealed that at least another 40 people went overboard prior to the arrival of the rescuers, IOM spokesman Flavio di Giacomo told AFP.
“We drew up a list of the relatives and friends of survivors who were on the boat and there are at least 40 unaccounted for,” he said. “Some of them were children, although we cannot say exactly how many.”
Those rescued included 27 children and 51 women. Di Giacomo said the latest figures took the migrant death toll in the waters between North Africa and southern Italy to more than 400 since the start of the year.
The high number has been linked to a surge in the numbers attempting the perilous crossing during the winter months.
The increasing confidence and resources of people smugglers and the worsening chaos in Libya have both been put forward as explanations for the acceleration in the flow of migrants trying to reach Europe by sea after making their way to north Africa overland from the Middle East, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.
The Italian Foreign Ministry said 8,918 migrants had arrived Italy between January 1 and March 4, about 60 per cent increase from the 5,611 registered in the same period in 2014.
A total 170,000 migrants landed in Italy in the whole of 2014 and current trends suggest that record figure could be comfortably exceeded this year.
Spain outstrips Italy and France in wine exports
Spain is the biggest exporter of wine in the world, beating Italy and France, according to the latest figures from the Spanish wine market observatory.
Spain is a relative newcomer on the international circuit, compared to the French and the Italians, yet it has beaten records to become the biggest wine exporter in the world.
Data published by Spanish wine market observatory (Obervatorio Espanol de los Mercados del Vino – OEM) showed that Spanish wine exports reached 22.8 million hectolitres in 2014, a 22.3 per cent rise on the previous year.
But while the volume of sales has increased, profits have fallen 2.2 per cent since 2013.
France is now the biggest buyer of Spanish wines; guzzling 5.8 million hectolitres in 2014, a 40 per cent rise on the previous year, followed by Germany, Portugal, and Russia.
Spain is home to the biggest vineyards in the world and has always sold in bulk to its neighbours, rather than bottled wine, but profits are falling – the latest figures showed that in 2014 the average price was 40 cents per litre, compared to 60 cents the year before.
One important factor in why Spanish wines are so cheap compared to their competitors, according to Nairy Chaglasyan, Area Manager for wine exporter J Garcia Carrion, is that Spain opened up to the international market relatively late.
“Both France and Italy have a much better international presence, they have more experience in marketing their products and have been exporting for much longer than Spanish producers.”
Chaglasyan said if Spain wants to keep its crown as the world’s biggest exporter along with increasing profits, the country has to work on selling itself and its wine, focusing less on the distinct regions of the country and pushing Spanish wine as a whole.
‘Women in love’, a problem for Berlusconi
Former Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, 78, laments women falling in love with him as a lifelong problem.
He made the complaint in a wiretapped telephone conversation used as evidence in a prostitution case centred on his parties.
Transcripts of conversations between Berlusconi and Gianpaolo Tarantini, a businessman accused of procuring prostitutes for the billionaire Berulusconi, were released to the Italian media. They laid bare the daily life of the politician in 2008 and 2009.
In numerous conversations, the pair discussed the women to be invited to meet Berlusconi, with Tarantini in September 2008 promising to “send you a little angel” to help with his back pain.
Tarantini is one of seven people on trial in Bari for involvement in the alleged prostitution ring, while Berlusconi is accused of bribing his friend to lie about the alleged sex parties.
“This evening I have two girls,” Berlusconi tells Tarantini on the phone, talking about a “very sweet” woman from Naples and a 21-year-old Brazilian woman.
Berlusconi also suggests who should be invited to his parties, requesting a pair of Cuban singers and another woman whom he claims sings at the Vatican.
Despite discussing at length the women in his life, Berlusconi appears unhappy at the power of his charms.
“This has always been my problem, women that fall in love. It’s something that has pursued me my whole life,” he says in the wiretapped conversation, published in Italian media.
Berlusconi was at the time of the wiretaps serving his third term as Prime Minister, a role which he notes interrupts his active social life.
“Unfortunately I have a bilateral with [Angela] Merkel,” he tells Tarantini, turning down a dinner invitation for the meeting with the German Chancellor.
Berlusconi also refers to his “working for the whole world … for America, for Russia,” by trying to arrange meetings and overcome “misunderstandings” between the presidents of the United States and Russia.
