#NoWar2022: Challenging media bias
I’ve had a peacebuilding crush on the organization FAIR for some time, even using their research in my textbook “Peace Journalism Principles and Practices.” You can imagine my delight, then, when I was asked to present on a panel with FAIR's founder at the online conference “No War 2022” sponsored by World Beyond War. 

FAIR is “a national media watch group that has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986,” according to its website.

During the panel titled, “How to challenge mainstream media bias and promote peace journalism,” FAIR’s Jeff Cohen talked about the pro-war bias in the media, using a FAIR study of the run up to the Iraq war as evidence. In this study, only 3 of 393 people interviewed pre-war were dissenting, anti-war voices. This is the antithesis of peace journalism since society was never given an opportunity to value non-violent responses to the Iraq-U.S. conflict. While there is no study data yet, Cohen said he believed that the same dynamic is playing out now vis-à-vis the Ukraine war—that news consumers are being fed only narratives that support expanding NATO and providing military hardware to Ukraine. I agree with this assessment.

He believes the pro-war bias has both structural and ideological causes. The structural factors feeding pro-war media bias include corporate ownership and the influence of military contractors. Ideologically, Cohen said the U.S. media universally sells the notion of American exceptionalism, and that the U.S. is a force for good, for peace, and for human rights in the world. 

Dru Jay from The Breach

The second part of the panel talked about solutions to this pro-war bias. I presented peace journalism as one alternative. Then, Dru Jay from The Breach online discussed how his publication seeks to make pro-war institutions “more visible and understandable.” One great article from https://breachmedia.ca/ talked about the corporate beneficiaries of weapons being shipped to Ukraine, as well as the expansion of NATO. He talked about how The Breach is framing stories differently and offering a competing narrative, one that is not black and white or us vs. them. Sounds like pretty solid peace journalism to me.