Shattering Old Paradigms:

1. Shattering Old Paradigms: Developing a Global Curriculum for Conflict and Post-Conflict Journalism • Deborah Nelson, J.D. • Philip Merrill College of Journalism, • University of Maryland, USA. • ZulkarimeinNasution • Department of Communication, • Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, • Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia.

2. The background • How can the world better understand the • need forinternationaljustice and human rights? • Start with journalism students. The Salzburg Global Seminar is partnering with universities on four continents in a new initiative to give journalism students worldwide a deeper understanding of international law and justice and to teach those students the skills to identify key stories and appropriate sources.

3. II. The Objective • Recognizing the critical role journalists play in conflict and peace, the project’s aim is to develop, pilot and evaluate model university curricula for reporting on human rights and international justice.

4. III. The Methods This initiative, funded through the Open Society Foundations, launched with the preparation of an in-depth report on the global needs for such a curriculum. Input was gathered from representatives of universities, international justice organizations, legal experts, journalists and news executives on four continents through a survey and follow-up interviews. The resulting report, Preparing Journalists for New Realities:  Global Curriculum Pilot on the Coverage of Justice Issues and Institutions, is incorporated into this paper.

5. The report informed two international workshops in 2010 at SchlossLeopoldskron in Salzburg, Austria, to design a universal curriculum, and a third workshop in The Hague Netherlands in 2012 to tailor the curriculum to the needs and experiences of participating institutions from around the world. • The intention of the Salzburg workshops was to consider the needs of journalism programs in universities in countries that have wrestled with covering stories about justice and rights: South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo.

6. Has considered such “new realities” as: • new institutions in the field of international justice: i.e. the International Criminal Court and war crimes tribunals; • new technologies: new digital technologies as well as new and cross-platform media institutions that provide a much wider range of delivery and engagement methods; • new players in the field: journalism schools increasingly teach students who may practice journalism or quasi-journalism in non-traditional news institutions, i.e. NGOs and social networking and citizen journalism sites.

7. III.Survey results →Three-dozen educators, legal experts and representatives of the news media and journalism nonprofit organizations were surveyed for their views about a university-based initiative to train journalists. →There was consensus about a deep need for a university-based journalism curriculum that provides a basic education on international justice issues and institutions. →Similarly, when asked to anticipate the biggest challenges in designing and implementing a curriculum, most identified similar obstacles and suggested similar solutions.

8. →Additionally, most saw a new curriculum as an opportunity to present international justice issues to journalism students in a broader context of journalists’ responsibilities and rights. →There was not, however, consensus as to how or whether to engage professional news media in the planning, teaching and training.

9. The curriculum Course Syllabus: Reporting on International Humanitarian and Criminal Law and International Justice • Unit I: International Humanitarian and International • Criminal Law • Unit II: Covering Judicial Institutions • Unit III: Journalism Practice and Ethics

10. Course Overview: Information provided by warring factions during armed conflicts is often purposely biased and inaccurate. Thus, it is imperative that journalists not just rely on materials provided by such factions, but be familiar with the background of international humanitarian and criminal law, to get the story “right.” As the “first historians of war,” journalists have a responsibility to look beyond the rhetoric of war and understand what is happening to civilians and other noncombatants on the ground. To do this, they need to have a firm grasp of international law and what it defines as legal, illegal, and criminal in war, and reflect this in their reporting.

11. This interdisciplinary course will help working journalists and journalism students understand the legal framework that has evolved to prosecute perpetrators of serious international crimes, including genocide and crimes against humanity, since the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals. • The course will examine the guiding principles and procedures of a range of international and hybrid courts—as well as their advantages and disadvantages.

12. Finally, it will prepare students for the legal, ethical, and policy issues that they may confront in their coverage of armed conflicts and international criminal justice. This 15-week course is designed for working journalists and journalism students at the undergraduate and graduate levels. It may be adapted in any way that best suits the instructor(s) and/or the students needs.

13. Conclusions: →Reporting on international justice has changed in many ways. There are now “new realities” that required a new approach to cover conflict and aftermath in more systematic and comprehensive ways. →Digital technology has become a weapon in conflict for good, ill and neutral ends. The same technology also has placed new pressures on journalists covering conflict, with the ability to disseminate news instantaneously requiring instantaneous, high-stakes decision-making on questions of accuracy, ethics and news value. →Journalists need to walk into those situations well prepared if they are to make good split-second decisions. The emergence of complex international justice mechanisms poses new challenges for post-conflict news coverage, with much riding on the news media’s ability to report accurately and serve effectively as watchdog.

14. Some of characteristics of the new model of conflict reporting could be outlined as follows: • →Comprehensive, multidimensional and informed in the principles of international humanitarian and criminal law and the dynamics of ethnic conflict. • →Well-grounded in post-conflict issues and justice institutions, and cognizant of the media’s responsibility to keep the public informed of proceedings. • →Perhaps most importantly, there must be a recognition that the news media’s duty does not end when a conflict ends. Journalists are obliged to continually seek the truth until it emerges, even if that means following a judicial process that may take years, even decades to complete.

15. In short, if we try to compare the characteristics of this curriculum with the existing practice of conflict/war reporting: The existing practices The new curriculum Multidimensional “Never ending” effort of promoting justice Intentionally ‘systematic’ Use all relevant,possible and available resources • “Single focused” • “Limited” on certain period of time (mostly during the conflict/war) • Generally “sporadic” or ‘situation dependent • Conventional source based