Caen Memorial - A Museum of Peace - The Connected Traveler

Peace Journalism
"..war, and violence in general, are monuments erected over conflicts badly handled." - Jake Lynch, British Journalist

I was never a World War II buff. My father was navigator of a D-Day landing ship and after the war, the experience continued to consume him. I was too young to understand his recurring nightmares, his tedious stories, his working through of the horrors he experienced. It was one reason visiting the Caen Memorial-A Museum of Peace near the beaches of Normandy in France struck my heart.

Omaha Beach, Normandy-R.Johnson

The exhibition is not only a museum of battlefields but of the process of war and peace. It begins with the failure of peace, the post WWI era and the "Great Depression" in the US that triggered the economic woes of Europe. Then the display spirals and plunges downward to the basement of the museum and the depths of WWII, of blood, politics and ethnic cleansing. You see films of cheerful Nazi doctors examining eye colors for intensity and quality of blue. You see a world torn apart because of a few powerful madmen.

The exhibition then ascends toward hope, but not a satisfying hope, nudging up against today with the Cold War and A-Bomb proliferation in between. What is unfortunate is what the exhibit or history, cannot do, bring the kind of closure the world prayed for.

2004 is the 60th anniversary of the Allied Invasion of Normandy. It is sad to say that human nature has not improved a whit since then. There are still powerful madmen plus new technical tools to make war more efficient. These tools include those of propaganda as well as ordnance.

Some disturbing trends in journalism have evolved that are giving us a warped vision of war and its underlying causes. There is a section, almost hidden in the Caen Memorial, that is devoted to peace -- its definition, how it can be attained -- from the viewpoints of numerous cultures. In a section devoted to journalism. British TV and newspaper correspondent Jake Lynch works at a definition of "peace-minded journalism":

"Peace journalists would focus more on the underlying conflict and what can be done about it, and less on war and violence and who is the winner as if war were a football game. Most journalists see only two parties. Generally speaking war, and violence in general, are monuments erected over conflicts badly handled. Journalists should focus on conflict formation, their actors and goals, how goals clash. Most conflicts are between partial truths. The standard reporting most media is in terms of Us and Them, Good and Evil."

"The reader/listener/viewer should demand more of the media: they (the media) should not fan the flames, but prevent destructive fires."

Hate to say it, but this is Journalism 1A, the stuff that high minded journalism students learn in school before they are pummeled by the reality of the workplace. With news organizations closing bureaus and pooling coverage around the world, TV networks and newspapers have become news packagers rather than news gatherers. Also disturbing is the fact that the packaging is increasingly based on ideology, a formula that has proved very successful at Fox News. "Us vs Them", more than ever, has undermined our view of the world.. Headline writers are encouraged to create false urgency about impending disaster and bad guys on the prowl, a style known cynically in the TV news biz as "watch or die". Unfortunately the style, the packaging, is being mirrored in culture.

Peace journalism will have to come from a higher place than the reporter on the street. New forms of media offer some hope. Unfortunately webzines, cell phone networks and other enablers of Smart Mobs and political action networks can serve to feed flames as much as foster intelligent discussion. Maybe it is utopian to think that high-minded, analytical journalism still has a place in the news marketplace. It takes the power and leadership of a large news organization to pull it off, to expose the roots of conflict and question the leaders who choose to wage war. If it means pitting Good vs. Evil, one loudmouth against another at the cost of insight, "fair and balanced" is clearly not the answer.