Reporting Genocide

Media, Mass Violence and Human Rights

David Patrick

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781786722935
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

The Western world's responses to genocide have been slow, unwieldly and sometimes unfit for purpose. So argues David Patrick in this essential new contribution to the aid and intervention debate. While the UK and US have historically been committed to the ideals of human rights, freedom and equality, their actual material reactions are more usually dictated by geopolitical 'noise', pre-conceived ideas of worth and the media attention-spans of individual elected leaders. Utilizing a wide-ranging quantitative analysis of media reporting across the globe, Patrick argues that an over-reliance on the Holocaust as the framing device we use to try and come to terms with such horrors can lead to slow responses, misinterpretation and category errors - in both Rwanda and Bosnia, much energy was expended trying to ascertain whether these regions qualified for 'genocide' status. The Reporting of Genocide demonstrates how such tragedies are reduced to stereotypes in the media - framed in terms of innocent victims and brutal oppressors - which can over-simplify the situation on the ground. This in turn can lead to mixed and inadequate responses from governments.
Reporting on Genocide also seeks to address how responses to genocides across the globe can be improved, and will be essential reading for policy-makers and for scholars of genocide and the media.

1

The Crime of Crimes?

Do people really care about genocide? On the surface, the answer seems an obvious ‘yes’. Official acknowledgement of historical instances, such as Germany’s recent decision to properly recognise the Armenian genocide, continues to grow year on year. Memorialisation of certain events – particularly the Holocaust – gains ever-wider prominence, with celebrities and various public figures eager to be seen commemorating these dark pages in human history. And in the realm of popular media, the likes of Schindler’s List and Hotel Rwanda achieve both box-office success and near-universal critical acclaim. Evidently then, one might assume, crimes of this nature are an affront to the purported liberal values upon which postwar Western civilisation has been built. But as the following study seeks to demonstrate, this may be little more than a self-delusion on grand scale, with the Anglo–American response to genocide being as susceptible to media-framing and the limitations of realpolitik as virtually any other contemporary issue.

Encompassing the darkest aspects of human nature, history is littered with brutal examples of genocide, and it is a darkness which continues to manifest itself in different forms to this very day. But although mass murder may be ‘as old as the human race,’ it is only in recent decades that interest in such crimes has led to a separate school of study.¹ Before this academic development, however, genocide had grown to be considered by many as a crime which surpassed all others, a process which had its genesis in the importance placed upon the notion of ‘human rights’ in the aftermath of World War II. To quote Berel Lang:

On any ranking of atrocities, it would be difficult to name an act or event regarded as more heinous; genocide arguably appears now as the most serious offence in humanity’s lengthy – and, we recognise, still growing – list of moral or legal violations.²

While there are a number of different ways in which genocide can be defined, this study will use Frank Chalk’s interpretation of genocide as being ‘a form of one-sided mass killing in which a state or other authority intends to destroy a group, as that group and membership are defined by the perpetrator.’³ Though terms like ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘mass violence’ will also be utilised throughout, this work is essentially focusing on violence which takes place within a more general process of repression and persecution, which is aimed at a predominantly civilian population.

Yet acts of genocide themselves are not the main focus of this study, with documentation and analysis of genocidal mass violence already an established field. Much less developed is research into how such atrocities are publicised and framed by the media when they occur. Though descriptions and coverage of global atrocities have a long history, it is only in the last 70 years – and even more so with the advent of international communications technology in recent decades – that such events have been reported on virtually as they were taking place. In turn, ordinary people in the West are now accustomed to seeing such things in the media. Certainly, as Zelizer notes, ‘Nearly every time we pick up a newspaper, turn on the television, or listen to the radio, we learn of another instance that has been added to the repertoire of horrific acts.’⁴ As will be explored in the pages to follow, however, there is little by way of correlation between greater knowledge of such crimes and an increased response to those same atrocities.

By focusing on the Holocaust, Bosnia (1992–5) and Rwanda (1994) – three historical occurrences which are generally accepted as examples of ‘genocide’ – this research is able to refine its analysis and, in doing so, provide more specific conclusions regarding media framing of genocide than would be the case if the scope of this study had been expanded to focus on violence and suffering more generally. Taking these three examples of genocide as its key case studies, this research engages with two primary questions:

(1)How has the Anglo–American press reported on different instances of genocidal violence in the twentieth century?

(2)What do the findings of this research reveal about Western attitudes to mass violence?

Structure and Approach

For the purposes of this study, and to provide chronological consistency within the book, Chapter 2 focuses on the Holocaust and its subsequent place in Anglo–American culture. The first half of this chapter engages primarily with the Anglo–American response to the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps in April and May 1945 – a crucially important landmark in terms of Western exposure to genocide. Though the Holocaust was not the first genocide of the twentieth century – the cases of the Herero (1904–8) and the Armenian (1915) genocides being two notable prior examples – it was the first instance in which its revelation provoked an enormous surge of press interest and, as a result, it was seen to have a much wider popular impact than previous examples of this crime. Utilising newspaper reports from the time, supplemented by a range of other primary sources, the main purpose of this section is to highlight the societal impact which accompanied the horrific revelations following the Allied advance into Nazi Germany.

With this first section engaging with the idea that the liberation of the camps in the spring of 1945 proved to be something of an ‘introduction’ to genocidal crimes for many in the Anglo–American world, the second section of Chapter 2 details how the Holocaust – as a distinct entity – came to become increasingly central to Western consciousness in the decades which followed the end of World War II. Indeed, it should be remembered that the Holocaust (as it is now understood) did not become widely recognised, or appreciated, automatically with the discovery of the camps. Instead, a series of popular representations in the years which followed – a process which arguably reached its zenith in the early 1990s – had a critical influence on how the crimes of the Nazis were to ultimately achieve a level of recognition unlike most other historical events of the twentieth century. Chapter 2, therefore, first engages with the general response to the liberation of Germany’s concentration camps, before detailing how the Holocaust came to be increasingly well-recognised over the course of the twentieth century – arguing that this latter process ultimately had an impact on the Western conceptualisation of genocide itself.

Chapters 3 and 4 provide the analytical core of this study, and engage primarily with the Anglo–American press response to the crisis in the Balkans (1992–5) and the Rwandan genocide (1994). Detailing the manner in which eight specific newspapers reported on these two instances of mass violence, these chapters seek to highlight trends which emerged in the reporting of two of the most infamous cases of genocide in the late twentieth century. Using both quantitative and qualitative analysis, both case-studies utilise a 114-day sample, ensuring that any notable comparisons can be used as evidence in supporting the conclusions within the study as a whole. Though there are several recent studies which have focused on the Western response to these two events, few have looked at them in relation to a wider notion of the apparent importance (or lack of) placed on this crime within the Western world.

The decision to use only British and American newspaper titles was taken primarily on the basis of ease of access, but also because the United Kingdom and the United States – both permanent members of the UN Security Council – are seen to be (at least rhetorical) supporters of human rights. Further, the press in both of these countries exist within a free-market system. Having few constraints on what they can put into print, any trends or patterns which emerge from this research can therefore be attributed to the decisions of the press themselves, rather than as a result, for example, of direct government manipulation. As something of a disclaimer though, it should be noted that these same titles – whilst indeed being generally free of state influence and the like – do exist within this free-market system as economic enterprises, and so are expected to take into consideration the economic viability of covering a given news item. This is of particular relevance in relation to the reporting of foreign news events – such as the violence which took place in the Balkans or in Rwanda – and therefore must always be regarded as an important factor when discussing the response of the Anglo–American press to events which take place overseas. This consideration, in itself though, is favourable to the overall analysis in Chapters 3 and 4, since the decision to cover the expense of sending journalists to one region (e.g., Sarajevo) whilst not expending similar resources to report on a comparable situation in a different region (e.g., Kigali) can be cited as evidence of a variation in the manner in which the two occurrences were constructed as being somehow different in terms of their importance to the Anglo–American news agenda.

A total of eight newspapers were selected for analysis within this research, four from the US and four from Britain. The American titles chosen were the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune; whilst The Times, the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph and the Independent were selected from the British press. With reference to the British titles, it should be noted that – for the purposes of seven-day coverage – a Sunday equivalent was chosen for each, these being: the Sunday Times, the Observer, the Sunday Telegraph and the Independent on Sunday. Each of the titles selected are regarded as occupying the quality end of the newspaper market, and as such are expected to be a reliable source of news – particularly that which deals with international matters.⁵ A number of these newspapers command sufficient respect that they can be legitimately regarded as being agenda setters, in that their editorial decisions and coverage on a range of matters, both foreign and domestic, will generally influence what stories and issues other branches of news media give priority to. This phenomenon is especially pronounced in the United States, where the New York Times (and to a lesser extent, the Washington Post) can be viewed as being both a key source for policy makers and an informal determinant of policy itself.⁶ Tabloid newspapers – despite their comparatively large circulations – were rejected as sources as they tend to focus predominantly on domestic matters, and so a lack of coverage of the likes of Bosnia or Rwanda in publications such as the Sun would not be particularly revealing to the focus of this study.⁷

For each of the two case studies selected, a sample size of 114 days was chosen. This number was arrived at by the fact that the Rwandan example was selected first, and stems from the 100-day duration of the genocide plus a further two weeks added in order to include the refugee crisis which followed the violence. Taking as its starting point the day immediately following the assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana, the period of analysis for Chapter 4 therefore is 7 April – 29 July 1994. Given that the sample size for the Rwandan case was 114 days, it was decided that for purposes of direct comparison the sample size for Bosnia would be the same. This presented some difficulties, however, as the crisis in the Balkans lasted more than three years and a random sample of 114 days would not be suitably representative of how the press covered major developments in Bosnia and the surrounding region. To counter this, four specific events were chosen around which in-depth analysis could be conducted – with each specific period being either 28 or 29 days in length. Following a review of secondary literature concerning Bosnia, the four events selected were ultimately chosen because they involved a notable instance of mass atrocity. The first period selected is from 1–28 August 1992, which details the discovery of functioning concentration camps in eastern Bosnia. The second period (29 January – 26 February 1994) takes the Markale market bombing as its focal point, whilst the third period (7 July – 3 August 1995) highlights press reaction to the fall of the Srebrenica safe haven. The final section of this analysis, which combines with the previous three to form the basis of the third chapter, is concerned with the 28 August 1995 shelling of Sarajevo which led to NATO retaliation, and engages with the period 21 August – 18 September 1995.

By researching the various ways in which genocide has been responded to and publicised by the press at different junctures in the twentieth century, this research seeks to expand on a field of study which has developed over recent decades, aiming to provide fresh perspectives on how the Anglo–American world confronts what is regarded as the crime of crimes. On a more functional, empirical level, this research seeks to make a major contribution in terms of analysing the press response to both Bosnia and Rwanda, detailing the overall trends and themes which appeared in the case studies chosen. At the same time, it also aims to highlight how the accumulation of Holocaust awareness in the Anglo–American world was seen to influence the manner in which these 1990s atrocities – and genocide as a concept itself – were framed by the British and American press. Whilst such analysis has been attempted by others, this research seeks to expand on these existing works by embarking upon a wider exploration (both in terms of sample size and number of newspapers selected) than anything previously undertaken.⁸

Ultimately though, this study begins from one simple premise: that the overall response to genocide in the late twentieth century was not consistent with the by-then established Western commitment to the protection of human rights. Whilst the claims of some academics that Rwanda and Bosnia were ignored by the Anglo–American world are an exaggeration, it remains the case that both these horrific events were often of little interest to Western media. At other times they were misunderstood, de-contextualised and misrepresented by a number of respected British and American newspapers. Indeed, to borrow a quote from Samantha Power, ‘We have all been bystanders to genocide: The crucial question is why.’⁹

2

Bringing Darkness to Light

Anglo–American Awareness of the Holocaust, 1945–95

This chapter engages with the evolving place of the Holocaust in mid- to late twentieth-century Anglo–American popular culture, in an attempt to highlight how this particular event – through mass-media representations, memorialisation and other depictions – came to occupy a unique place within Western society. Not only widely recognised within both Britain and America, the Holocaust – as a particular example of the crime of genocide – has also become intrinsically linked to the popular understanding of what ‘genocide’ entails. The first half of this chapter is concerned with the reaction, both in the press and in wider Anglo–American society, to the discovery of concentration camps in Germany and other parts of Europe in April and May 1945. This period is discussed primarily because it presents a series of notable observations in relation to the overall media response to the liberation of the camps – particularly the fact that journalists seemed genuinely shocked by what was discovered, in a manner unlike the vast majority of 1990s reporting of similar crimes. Further, this section aims to highlight the fact that – through newspapers, radio and cinema – this period can be interpreted as the first instance of genocide to be presented to the Anglo–American public in such a concentrated manner. The second half of ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Author Bio
• Endorsement
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1 The Crime of Crimes?
• 2 Bringing Darkness to Light: Anglo–American Awareness of the Holocaust, 1945–95
• 3 Inconveniently Close: Anglo–American Coverage of the Bosnian War
• 4 A Faraway People: Media Coverage of the Rwandan Genocide
• 5 From Disbelief to Disinterest
• Appendix
• Notes
• Bibliography