Understanding Contemporary Journalism

written by Tatah Mentan

A Handbook of Principles and Practice

Journalism is one of the most important professions today. Without it, large swaths of the world similarly might have remained “dark, impoverished, tortured,” because few people would have been aware of the nature and depth of the atrocities therein. You can’t fix what you can’t find. Indeed, we have only to look at places today where journalists must risk their lives to do their jobs-places such as Central Europe, the Philippines, Mexico, Myanmar, Russia, Turkey, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Cameroun, Afghanistan, and too many others-to appreciate anew what an incalculable difference the media make, reporting on wars, famines, genocide, and the tyrants who green-light them. But saving the world apparently is not enough. I have included a chapter on Peace Journalism because it uses conflict analysis and transformation to update the concept of balance, fairness and accuracy in reporting. This approach provides a new road map tracing the connections between journalists, their sources, the stories they cover and the consequences of their reporting-the ethics of journalistic intervention to play a role in global peace rather than fuelling conflicts.

Tatah Mentan

Tatah Mentan is Theodore Lentz scholar of Peace and Security Studies and Professor of Political Science. He has authored many books on burning world issues in areas like political economy of international relations, the predatory wars of corporate globalization and democratization in a netarchic world torn and convulsed by corporate capitalist cannibalism and warfarism.