Today Reuters reports on the deaths of two British aid workers in Sudan’s western Darfur region. To provide context about the conflict for readers, the wire service gives us two paragraphs:
After years of conflict over scarce resources, rebels took up arms early last year accusing the Khartoum government of neglect and of arming Arab militias, called Janjaweed, to loot and burn non-Arab villages.
Khartoum says it mobilized some militias to fight the rebellion but denies any links to the Janjaweed, calling them outlaws.
The report is another dubious example of “he said/she said” journalism, CJR Daily’s favorite pet peeve. In this case, as I have noted before in another publication, the evidence points overwhelmingly toward a connection between Khartoum and the Janjaweed. As John Heffernan, senior communications associate for Physicians for Human Rights, told me, the two groups are “working in concert.”
Reuters is not the first member of the press to frame the conflict in this way, nor is it likely to be the last. Yet CJR Daily can’t fathom why they would cover the story in such a manner. Are they afraid of libel suits from the Janjaweed? Or is the institution of “he said/she said” journalism so entrenched that editors and reporters just can’t bring themselves to call a spade a spade, even in this case?
–Thomas Lang
