The News Media, Civil War, and Humanitarian Action

The civil wars - and the ensuing humanitarian crises - that have been prominent features of the first post-Cold War decade have revealed a close and active relationship among a triangle of institutions: the news media, governments, and humanitarian organisations. This three-way relationship has elicited considerable commentary, with the media often depicted as the decisive casual link between a given crisis and how governments and aid groups behave. This volume looks at institutional interactions between the news media, both print and electronic, government policy makers and humanitarian agencies. Case studies from Liberia, northern Iraq, Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, Haiti, and Rwanda distill some of the experiences gained from calamities that have elicited widely varying coverage and responses. Acknowledging that the three groups have differing agendas, limitations, and constituencies, the book nevertheless indentifies a common interest in improving the quality of interactions for the benefit of victims.