Comics Peace Journalism and War Media Machines
Journalism is a very wide field that covers very critical topics as they are related to our daily life events that may affect our lives positively or negatively. It has a strong influence on societies and countries politically, economically and socially. Journalism has contributed tremendously to the actions and the reactions in various events by either peacemaking and reducing violence or by launching wars and igniting conflicts. The dominant journalism in the media machines today is war journalism that focuses on elite voices and violence that encourages violent responses. The counter to war journalism is peace journalism which focuses on non-elite voices and contributes to reducing violence. Comics journalism provides a key approach to peace journalism, as most comics journalists are focusing on interviewing regular people who suffer from conflicts and poverty in order to show the actual struggle and emphasize the historical context. This journalistic approach would help the reader to see the conflict in a wider perspective from different angles for better understanding of the cause of the conflict. Additionally, it would open windows for possible resolutions. The goal of concentrating on comics journalism as a type of piece journalism is to stress on its importance as a counter media against war journalism and conventional news media.
What is Peace Comics Journalism?
The definition of journalism, according to the American Press Institute, is the activity of gathering, assessing, creating, and presenting news and information. It is also the product of these activities. In Sarah Glidden’s graphic novel Rolling Blackouts, Sarah Stuteville defined journalism as anything that is informative, verifiable, accountable, and independent (Glidden, 2016, 26). In terms of these features, informative means the journalist is trying to inform people about a topic or a time or a person, verifiable relates to whether it is true, accountability relates to how journalists are responsible, and independence relates to whether the journalist reports for a particular reason (Glidden, 2016, 27). Stuteville’s model shows the proper approach of journalistic honesty in covering an event.
As noted above, the definition of journalism will help harness the definition of comics journalism. The main elements in defining comics journalism are visual and text to create the graphic plot. The deeply subjective is using word and image to create something very different from the standard news article (Duncan, Taylor, Stoddard, 2015, 69). According Kenan Koçak, he defined comics journalism as a combination of drawings and text in order to inform people about events, issues and situations. Additionally, it tends to resemble New Journalism in that both aspire to the status of novel writing (Koçak, 2017, 174). New Journalism according to Tom Wolfe is a non-fiction style driven by strong characters, narrative storytelling, realistic dialogue and a focus on themes of status and social conflict (Duncan, Taylor, Stoddard, 2015, 152). New Journalism was developed by Tom Wolfe to four tenets as follows: scene-by- scene construction, close third person's point of view where the reader can see another perspective, realistic dialogue, and a focus on status and details that reveal people's position in the world through personal characteristics (Duncan, Taylor, Stoddard, 2015, 153). Unlike regular journalism, comics journalism, grounded in this model, tends to turn events and interviews to a narrative and a report at the same time. In addition to present events in visual and artistic way.
Sacco explains in the introduction to Journalism, a collection of his short comics published in leading magazines and newspapers, “The journalist must strive to find out what is going on and tell it.” (Duncan, Taylor, Stoddard, 2015, 60). Basically, he is emphasizing on finding the truth and having passion to gain it. Sacco adds: “Since I’m a character in my own work, I give myself journalistic permission to show my interactions with those I meet.” (Duncan, Taylor, Stoddard, 2015, 61). He approaches comics in autobiographical way where he draws himself and interact with the characters that he interviewed and chose to include them in his comics. Sacco assert a belief as a comics journalist who has obligations to go deeper and must seek what he calls pictorial veracity, where anything that can be drawn accurately should be drawn accurately, by which it means drawing a thing must be easily recognizable as the real thing it is meant to represent (Duncan, Taylor, Stoddard, 2015, 61). That’s the honesty that he is trying to reach even with a subjective art medium like comics.
Based on the definitions above aside with the connections between journalism and comics, there are some reasons that prove comics journalism also falls into peace journalism. According to Jake Lynch, peace journalism is when editors and reporters make choices of what stories to report and about how to report them, that then create opportunities for society at large to consider and value non-violent responses to conflict (Lynch, 2006). Lynch explains the advantages of peace journalism as follows; this method explores the backgrounds and contexts of conflict formation and gives voices to non-elite voices, offers creative ideas for conflict resolution and peacemaking, exposes lies and cover up attempts on all sides, and pays attention to peace stories and post war developments (Lynch, 2006). On the other hand, war journalism focuses on violence, who prevails in war, propaganda, lies, and cover-ups. It focuses only on the effects of violence such as killings, wounding, and escalated conflict. This method concentrates on elite voices, victories, treaties, institutions, and controlling society (McGoldrick, Lynch, 2006, 29). The model of peace journalism is important because it differentiates the way how traditional news or a report could be presented and determine if that could make peace and what could ignite conflict.
Comics journalism could be considered as peace journalism where comics writers or comics artists address conflict without the pitfalls of war journalism. Similarly, comics journalism tends to be counterculture or subcultural media, which confronts Western media machines that adopt war journalism, which fan the flames of conflicts. Comic journalists should consider the ethical part and play a role as a cultural anthropologist who operate under a series of ethical guidelines and has an obligation to do no harm to the people who grant access (Smith, Duncan, 2012, 170). The majority of comics artists or comics writers who use a journalistic approach focus on pursuing the truth to rebel against the mainstream media. Comics journalists beholden to an abstract notion of truth defined by gathering facts as a regular journalist (Smith, Duncan, 2012, 170). They usually interview regular people, non-elite voices, and shed light on poverty, conflict zones and how much non-elite people suffer from war machines, capitalism, terrorism, occupations, colonialism and fundamentalism. Moreover, they would beholden to the people they follow as a cultural anthropologist (Smith, Duncan, 2012, 170). They depict everyday life stories to show the humanitarian sides and try to provide a creative and peaceful solution in order at least to decrease violence. They make the public aware of the other side of the story other than the propaganda that is dominating the mainstream media.
Joe Sacco’s work on Palestine is the definition of comics journalism and he shows how to do peace comics journalism. He enacts peace journalism successfully by traveling to warzones, interviewing people, taking pictures, thumbnailing comics pages, sketching, and taking notes. This shows that journalistic methods are the key element in his approach. Aside with peace journalistic approach by focusing on everyday life events, and regular people who are not famous, not leaders or not government officials, besides presenting the conflict aside with its historical context. He is trained as a journalist and uses peace journalistic approach to convey the truth and understand the conflict and its contexts. Sacco uses comics not just only to create a new kind of journalism, but also to question the orthodoxies of more traditional reporting (Duncan, Taylor, Stoddard, 2015, 61). Joe Sacco’s work usually delivers a close look at people affected by war and social upheaval, and to find the truth, he travels into war zones such as Bosnia, Iraq and Gaza Strip (Duncan, Taylor, Stoddard, 2015, 60). He points to the Palestinian rights movement, by reflecting everyday life in his work to show what is happening in war zones and countercultural media. Sacco specifically addressed and mentioned several important topics that are neglected by the Western media such as United Nation resolutions. These resolutions are related to Palestine including resolution 242 which states withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in 1967 war and resolution 338 that emphasizes to implement resolution 242. In addition, resolution 194 is about the Palestinian refugees and addresses the return to their homes and living at peace with compensation for loss or damage to their properties. Moreover, he talked about the 4th Geneva convention that addresses the protection of civilians during wars. Additionally, he mentioned Israeli prisons and their violations to human rights, first Intifada and fundamentalism. Besides, Sacco drew chapters about some social issues such as women’s rights in Palestine, as well as polygamy and handicapped rights issues. Rights movements are a part of everyday life in Palestine, and Sacco’s work reflects that concern. These international laws are mentioned in Palestine as a part of Sacco’s portrayal of everyday life. These resolutions tend to be less well-covered in Western media, and the audience for Sacco’s work is less likely to be familiar with them. Sacco increases peoples’ awareness and show them the Palestinian side of related conflict. These topics are important to tackle as they focus on civilians, they are neglected by media machines such as CNN, Fox News, BBC and Aljazeera where they concentrate on politicians and what ignites wars. When wars cause civilian deaths, dominant media consider deaths as numbers with no consideration of individual humanity or finding a solution to prevent their deaths{(Source)}. Mainstream journalists focus on what escalates conflicts and make viewers feel hopeless and depressed by concluding that peace is impossible. Joe Sacco also invoked the concept of orientalism where postcolonialism works hand in hand with war journalism. According to Edward Said, Orientalism {More details about Orientalism} is a manner of regularized or Orientalized writing, vision, and study dominated by imperatives, perspectives and ideological biases ostensibly suited to the orient (2002). Said argues that Orientalism can be found in current Western depictions of so-called "Arab" cultures.{(Examples-paraphrase from original)}The depictions of "the Arab" portray this figure as irrational, menacing, barbaric, untrustworthy, anti-Western, dishonest, and perhaps most importantly prototypical (2002){Examples from Comics / Journalism}. Presenting people in a certain way based on the Western culture would definitely cause tension and hate between nations and may ignite wars. In attempting to complicate stereotypes, Sacco shows that peace comics journalism can help us combat war journalism and counter the war media machine.
In Not the Israel My Parents Promised by Harvey Pekar, he shows an ex-zionist view as he gains perspective when grew up in a Zionist family, and was raised to love Israel unconditionally. When he found out through reading and searching the opposite, he completely gave up his belief that he inherited from his parents, he never visited Israel or Palestine. As a researcher, he looks for the truth, even if it fragments his own belief system, but his process is not necessarily journalistic. Even though he didn’t create his comics in journalistic way, but I would consider the book as a counter pro-Israel media that has been invading the mainstream media where they neglect the Palestinian rights and present the news out of historical context. Harvey was able to show the historical approach as well, to make the reader compares it with the media and understands the roots of the problem.
In Jerusalem by Guy Delisle, He just draws what he encounters. He points out the apartheid wall and provides evidence of how people are suffering from the Israeli occupation. He doesn’t have an agenda, He lived in Jerusalem for a year through his wife as an administrator for Doctors Without Borders. He had no idea about the political situation before his visit. As a traveler, he observes without much reflection upon what he portrays; however, this makes his work less in-depth and does not clearly indicate his biases. I wouldn’t consider his comic book as a counter war journalism, but I would say it helps peace journalism from an artist without agenda as he observed and draw what he saw. For example, he showed in the pages 39 to page 49 the Apartheid wall and he was a witness of some confrontations.
In How to Understand Israel in 60 days by Sarah Glidden, Like Sacco, Sarah Glidden interviews people to help portray everyday life, she used ethnographical autobiographical methods to show how journalism is made and how it perpetuates a Western gaze. First ethnography, which is according to John Brewer, it is the study of people in naturally occurring setting or fields by means of methods which capture their social meanings and ordinary activities involving the researcher participating directly in the setting, if not also in the activities, in order to collect data in a systematic manner but without meaning being imposed on them externally (Brewer, 2000,10). She shows what Israel looks like with maps and other presentation of cultural context through specific scenes. Sarah also used Autobiography, where she talks about her own experiences as she is a character in the story. She wanted to know if she is brainwashed about Israel. She made comics about her journey as a liberal, American Jew visiting Israel for the first time on a free Birthright trip. Sarah also interviews people, takes notes, so she takes the journalistic approach. I would say that Sarah’s work is peace comics journalism, as she searches for the truth and travel, and put the issue in its historical and political context.
on April 26th, 2019, in an interview I have conducted via Facebook with the American cartoonist Marguerite Dabaie, author of the graphic novel The Hookah Girl and Other True Stories (Rosarium 2018) draws autobio, socio-political, and historical-fictional comics with a decorative flair. She has also contributed to a number of anthologies and is currently working on a graphic novel about the 7th-century Silk Road. Marguerite is a freelance illustrator and has worked with such publications as The Nib, Believer, and Cicada magazine, among others. She also regularly contributes to the Electronic Intifada, the Journal of Palestine Studies, and Al-Shabaka. Once a year, Marguerite co-hosts Pete’s Mini Zine Fest, the fest-in-a-bar, in Brooklyn. Marguerite Agreed that the listed books above could be considered as comic peace journalism. Dabaie said: “I find peace journalism to be particularly useful within the Palestinian/Israeli context because in traditional Western media, we very rarely get the faces, stories, or even the names of the Palestinians who are caught in a news clip. Often, they are treated like there are “so many of them” that their deaths are numbered, they’re shown as a horde, or we are told en masse of the terrible things they’ve done. This only change if we frequent news sites that go out of their way to humanize the numbers; the usual news cycles do not do this”. Dabaie continued: “What peace journalism does is force the reader to confront the humanity of everyday people even with just a little more background into the situation, especially something as drawn out as Palestine and Israel. Context is as of equal importance as factual reporting”. Dabaie asserted that social media websites have been helping to tell the other side of the story by non-elite people. Dabaie said: “This is one reason why social media, especially Twitter, has become such an invaluable tool: It allows for “reporting” on the ground, while people live their experiences, without a filter. For years, news about Palestine needed to go through traditional news sources (and therefore filtered), but Twitter now allows Palestinians to tweet directly about their lives, removing the middleman. The US, at least, feels like it’s beginning to really become more critical of Israeli treatment of Palestinians, so in my mind, telling individual stories works, in any way we can”.
From these examples, it is clear that comics journalism approaches peace journalism and could be a tool against the dominating war journalism-oriented media machines that decrease the chance of peace in the whole world. This is particular true on the Palestinian issue{a paragraph about the Palestinian and Israeli Issue history}, where there is no hope in the horizon due to the continued tension between Israel and Palestine including wars and siege on Gaza since 2007, in addition to the empty negotiations for decades without any solution. It is certain that war media have contributed in perpetuating tensions and conflict because majority of news channels and newspapers have political agenda to favor a particular party. The Western governments and Western media are obviously bias towards Israel neglecting the Palestinians rights. I used some of prominent comic books addressed the Palestinian and Israeli conflict where each author used different approaches. Sacco and Glidden used a journalistic, autobiographical and ethnographical by traveling and interviewing people and reflect the cultural context in their comics and include themselves in the story. They found out the opposite of what mainstream media present about Palestinians, while Pekar used questioning and researching the history to conclude rejecting Zionism. Delisle has no Agenda, but he was an observer and presented what he saw and his book was helpful for comic peace journalism. Applying the peace journalistic methods on the methods were used in these books by the authors, I found out that they definitely fall in the category of peace journalism as their main concern is the truth and humanity. By increasing the numbers of comic artists and comic writers who adopt comic peace journalism. In this case, we would build a strong counter media works against traditional mainstream media particularly the war journalism, that would increase awareness about several critical issues, especially the Palestinian issue.
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