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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Journalism and Armed Conflict in Africa: The Civil War in Sierra Leone
Author:Khan, Amadu Wurie
Year:1998
Periodical:Review of African Political Economy
Volume:25
Issue:78
Period:December
Pages:585-597
Language:English
Geographic term:Sierra Leone
Subjects:journalism
civil wars
mass communication
Literature, Mass Media and the Press
Military, Defense and Arms
External links:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056249808704345
http://ejournals.ebsco.com/direct.asp?ArticleID=4DFCA144D069620E1EB5
Abstract:From 1994 to 1996, the author was involved as a journalist in hundreds of formal interviews and informal discussions with local and international journalists covering the civil war in Sierra Leone. He interviewed government forces, Revolutionary United Front (RUF) prisoners, human rights activists, peace mediators and negotiators, humanitarian aid workers, and other officials in government and civil society. Drawing on his experience, he sets out the nature of accusations of bias against the local and foreign media in Sierra Leone, accusations made not only by interested parties, but also by a wide range of readers or listeners, and which have been seen as materially affecting the course of the war and attempts at mediation and peacemaking. A variety of reasons for vulnerability to such accusations are then examined, including the exigencies of war reporting, journalistic practice in Sierra Leone, the political economy of the press, and the problems created both by harsh government restrictions on press freedom and the media's response to them. The paper argues that while there are instances of overt and calculated bias in reporting of the civil war, it is very difficult to draw a clear distinction between 'intended' and 'unintended' bias. Bibliogr., note., sum.
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