Peace Journalism in Theory and Practice: Kenyan and Foreign Correspondent Perspectives

Abstract

ABSTRACT Peace journalism (PJ) is a framework intended to improve conflict coverage by challenging traditional news values. Our study aimed to compare the use of PJ in the local and foreign coverage of two key violent events in Kenyan history—the 2017 election violence and the 2019 Dusit attack—as well as collecting reporters’ views and understandings of the concept. A content analysis of 257 articles across 10 legacy newspapers from Kenya, the United States, the United Kingdom and South Africa was supplemented with 14 semi-structued interviews with local and foreign reporters. We found war journalism (WJ) to be the prevailing frame, with no significant difference in the use of PJ between Kenyan and international newspapers apart from a few variations across individual indicators. The interviews exposed a lack of awareness of PJ in the case of foreign correspondents, and an interpretation that fundamentally differs from traditional understandings of the concept in the case of Kenyan reporters. We conclude that PJ is not a one-size-fits-all approach and needs to be embraced and transformed in cooperation between journalists and academics before it can become a reality in mainstream newsrooms.