Not so bad news? Investigating journalism’s contribution to what is bad, and good, in news on violent conflict

Across all disciplines concerned with the study of conflict, most scholars are united in their criticism of conflict news. Extant scholarship has documented an impressive variety of dysfunctions and failures in conflict journalism, extending from a disproportional focus on violence to aggravated ethnocentric biases and a susceptibility to false rumours, manipulation and propaganda. The coverage of conflict escalation and major conflict events, which constitutes the focus of most existing research, has especially been accused of distorting the facts, promoting double standards and inciting to hostility and violence. In consequence, many have doubted journalism’s ability to cover violent conflict in a balanced or even constructive fashion. The verdicts range from proclaiming a recurrent failure of the news media in the face of violent conflict, to the dire conclusion that journalism might be fundamentally flawed: When it comes to war and violence, in this view, the way in which journalists provide coverage tends to make a bad situation worse.