Reporting the World - the book

Drawing on discussions with more than 200 professional journalists, the book is called Reporting the World - a practical checklist for the ethical reporting of conflicts in the 21st Century

Download a pdf of the book 

It proposes a four-point ethical checklist and explains how it could be applied in practice: 

How is violence explained? 

• How does the explanation arise from the way violence is reported? 
  
• Does it offer a classic ‘blow-by-blow’ account? 
  
• Or does it cover the workings of structural and cultural violence on the lives of people involved?
  
• Does it illuminate the intelligible, if dysfunctional processes which may be reproducing the violence? 
  
• What are we led or left to infer about what should, or is likely to happen next?
  

What is the shape of the conflict? 

• Is the conflict framed as ‘tug-of-war’ - a zero-sum game of two parties contesting a single goal? 
  
• Or as ‘cat’s-cradle’ - a pattern of many interdependent parties, with needs and interests which may overlap, or provide scope for integrated solutions? 
  

Is there any news of any efforts or ideas to resolve the conflict? 

• Is there anything in the report about peace plans, or any image of a solution? 
  
• Must these aspects of a story wait until leaders cut a ‘deal’? 
  
• Do the reports of any ‘deal’ equip us to assess whether it is likely to tackle the causes of violence?
  
• Do we see any news of anyone else working to resolve or transform the conflict? 
  

What is the role of Britain; ‘the West’; the ‘international community’ in this story? 

• Are ‘our’ stated goals of intervention the same as our real goals? Do we get any exploration of what the unstated goals might be?
  
• Is there anything about interventions already underway, albeit perhaps undeclared?
  
• Is there any examination of the influence of previous or prospective interventions on people’s behaviour?
  
• Does it equip us to assess whether more, or less intervention might represent a solution, or to discriminate between different kinds?
  

Praise for the book, Reporting the World, by Jake Lynch:

‘First class’ - Fergal Keane, Special Correspondent, BBC

’A thoughtful blend of academic rigour and journalistic experience. To read it is to learn a little more about the true nature of events’ - Peter Preston, columnist and former editor, The Guardian

’An excellent resume of a most important subject’ - Simon Jenkins, columnist, The Times and London Evening Standard

’A convincing argument’ - Susie Orbach, author and psychotherapist

’Serious and wise’ - Professor Ian Hargreaves, Cardiff University

‘Highly persuasive and impressive’ - Naomi Sakr, University of Westminster