Dangerous Grounds, Dangerous Reporting: Media Coverage of Terror Conflicts In Nigeria

Matheson and Allan (2009) highlighted the blurring line between friends and foes in war reporting. They used publicreactions to Kevin Sites’ war blog to highlight the challenges facing journalists in the execution of their professional dutiesduring times of conflict. Mary Kaldor (Kaldor, 1999, 2001, 2006, 2013, 2014; Rangelov & Kaldor, 2012), highlightedmisinterpretations of current global conflicts as conventional wars. In Defence of New Wars, she noted that many current global crises especially those from African and the Middle Eastern countries, fall under new wars (Kaldor, 2013, p. 2).These wars are “not fought on geopolitical frames but on identity politics”. Identity she says “has a different logic from geopolitics or ideology...the aim is to gain access to the state for particular groups... rather than to carry out particular policies or programmes in the broader public interest”. These are often results of leadership failures, social injustices which manifest as corruption, nepotism, unemployment, sectarian or unequal distribution of resources, religious intolerance or cultural marginalisation. Fighters of these wars do not necessarily have an identified enemy; instead they target other innocent civilians to make their point.