Issue Dec 2008: Table of Contents

Andrew Hoskins, Barry Richards, and Philip Seib
Editors' note

Journalists, war crimes and international justice
Howard Tumber
City University, London, UK, H.Tumber@city.ac.uk

The examination of the ethical and moral issues surrounding the reporting of war crimes signals one of the outstanding problems facing journalism in the contemporary era. As the nature of war has changed, so has the nature of the journalism mandated to cover it, and the selection of war crimes trials, tribunals and truth commissions are key places in which to analyse these changes. Journalists and news organizations are divided over the merits of testifying at international war crimes tribunals. To some degree, the debate about appearing before war crimes courts has split along European and US lines. A number of European journalists and documentary film makers willingly testified before the war crimes tribunal in The Hague whilst US journalists tend to see the subpoena power of the tribunals as a threat to First Amendment freedoms. Based on interviews conducted with journalists, editors, lawyers and humanitarian aid workers, this article explores questions of journalistic objectivity and impartiality; the verification of journalists' stories; the safety repercussions for journalists participating in international trials; and the implications for the erosion of confidentiality of journalists' sources.

Key Words: international justice • journalists • tribunals • war crimes

Are the lapdogs starting to bark? Japanese newspaper coverage of the SDF mission to Iraq
Cameron Otopalik
Central Washington University, Ellensburg, Washington, USA, Otopalic@cwu.edu

Todd Schaefer
Central Washington University, Ellensburg, Washington, USA, schaefet@cwu.edu

Japanese media coverage is popularly portrayed as being closely tied to the ruling elite through the operation of kisha clubs where access to government sources and close government—journalist—business interconnections are cultivated. Given the gravity of the Koizumi administration's decision to send Self-Defense Forces to Iraq in support of the 2003 US invasion and the fundamental constitutional question it involved, this event provides a unique opportunity to test the thesis that the Japanese media are merely the `lapdog' of government. Two models, hegemony and indexing, make different predictions about media/political elite relations in news coverage. The findings of this study reveal that coverage by journalists provided little support for either. Given this, two alternative models are created and tested, the ideological bias and populist models. These models suggest that the press takes its reporting cues from sources other than political elites. Further study to provide greater assurance of this is merited by results here.

Key Words: bias • hegemony • indexing • journalism • self-defense force • war coverage

Journalism of attachment and objectivity: Dutch journalists and the Bosnian War
Nel Ruigrok
University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, p.c.ruigrok@uva.nl

The civil war in Bosnia has been one of the most brutal periods in European post-war history. Dutch media played an important role in creating a rather stereotypical, simplified picture of the Bosnian conflict, and, as a consequence, also of what the Dutch government could do within an international context to solve it. The reasons the media created this simplified and stereotypical picture can be found in the phenomenon of `journalism of attachment'. This form of journalism regards reporters as participants in the conflicts they report, taking part in the public debate about the conflict. Using a content analysis of the news coverage about the Bosnian war we found that journalists covering the Bosnian war show attachment in the news coverage whether openly in the straight news articles or in a more subtle way, through the use of opportune witnesses.

Key Words: Bosnian War • journalism of attachment • objectivity • war coverage

Coverage of the pre-Iraq War debate as a case study of frame indexing
Jacob Groshek
Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, Iowa State University, USA, jgroshek@iastate.edu

This study examined critical coverage, substantive news frames, and news sources in The New York Times and Washington Post coverage of the pre-Iraq War debate. This content analysis evaluated media coverage before and after Congress passed the resolution that authorized the use of military force in Iraq. Results demonstrated that Congressional consensus was related to diminished frequencies of critical and substantively framed paragraphs in coverage yet the ongoing international debate sustained relatively more intense levels of critical coverage after the resolution passed than before. Substantively framed coverage, however, declined across all source types and levels of measurement after the Congressional resolution. In sum, the observed increase in the level of consensus within the US government seemed to influence coverage of the pre-Iraq War debate as it continued within and among other groups, such that substantive news frames were indexed to this shift in the tone, intensity, and focus of the policy debate. These findings therefore suggest a level of integration between indexing and framing in which an increased level of official consensus may be predictive of not only certain tones of coverage but also certain news frames being adopted over others.

Key Words: framing • indexing • Iraq War • policy debate • sources

Examining the Danish cartoon affair: mediatized cross-cultural tensions?
Shawn Powers
University of Southern California, USA, spowers@usc.edu

Examined in the context of the rise of media influence in international conflict, the Danish cartoon affair offers troubling evidence against the hope that changes in the global mediascape will provide productive space and means for reconciliation of international and intercultural tensions. This study outlines several ways in which the mainstream Western media constructed, performed, narrativized, and framed the Danish cartoon affair to specifically appeal to culturally problematic assumptions about Muslim society and culture. Drawing from concepts such as the `mediatized public crisis' and `strategic framing', this study found that Western mainstream media outlets drew heavily on Samuel Huntington's `clash of civilizations' narrative, increasing public fear of Islamic culture, obscuring public understandings of the geopolitical and cultural realities underlying the affair, and further entrenching assumptions that have become barriers to productive cross-cultural dialogue.

Key Words: clash of civilizations • cross-cultural dialogue • Danish cartoon affair • media rituals • mediatized public crisis • strategic framing

Philip Lee
Comments on Cees Hamelink's article in Media, War & Conflict 1(1), April 2008

Cees J. Hamelink
Response to comments by Philip Lee
Media, War & Conflict 2008 1: 366-367.

Book Reviews

Todd Fraley
Book review: W. L. Bennett, R. G. Lawrence and S. Livingston When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2007. 264 pp. ISBN 978 0 226 04284 8

Mary Ellen Schiller
Book review: Ron F. Smith Ethics in Journalism, 6th edn Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2008. 368 pp. ISBN 978 1 4051 5934 0 (pbk)

Akil N. Awan
Book review: Bruce Bongar, Lisa M. Brown, Larry Beutler, James N. Breckenridge and Philip G. Zimbardo (eds) Psychology of Terrorism New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. 512 pp. ISBN 978 0 1951 7249 2 (hbk)

Editors:
Andrew Hoskins
University of Warwick, UK
Barry Richards
Bournemouth University, UK
Philip Seib
University of Southern California,

Reviews Editor:
Ben O'Loughlin
Royal Holloway, University of London