Resolution, Resistance, Resilience: Covering the Conflict in South Sudan

The recent experiences from South Sudan demonstrate some limitations of the peace journalism and conflict-sensitive reporting models. This chapter presents empirical findings from in-depth interviews with South Sudanese journalists and editors who covered the conflict. It illustrates how a conflict situation is typically characterised by suspicion and mistrust among the various parties involved and how representatives of either side often viewed journalists covering the peace talks with distrust. Peace journalism traditionally places emphasis on journalists as the ones who determine whether the media contribute to resolving or intensifying conflicts, but assign no role to government actors who, as the South Sudan case shows, have a part to play in enabling or hindering the media in their duty to cover conflicts professionally. The chapter argues that peace journalism should not be solely the responsibility of journalists, but include all parties of a conflict.