Best Practices for Journalists Covering International Crimes
Though a journalist’s audience is their community, their duty is dually divided between the truth and their community. Keeping an ear out toward international occurrences is important, because it presents the community with a sense of who they are and where they stand on the world stage. One big piece of reporting is crime, and knowing what kinds of crime are occurring and where can really help communities contextualize themselves.
It can seem intimidating, at least at first, to try and scour the ever-growing and sometimes conflicting sources of information about international goings-on, but there are several resources available to help journalists in search of information on international crimes.
The Centre for Law and Democracy and News Media Europe released a guide that outlines important steps for journalists who want to focus their search. It recommends focusing on three major crimes, listed below.
Genocide, which is defined as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” The list of acts that constitute genocide include mass murders targeting a specific identifier—such as race, ethnicity, and religion—and inflicting bodily or mental trauma on that group, forced sterilizations, and any government or hierarchachal actions aimed at eliminating that group.
Crimes against humanity, which are defined as “any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population.” These crimes include murder, physical and mental torture, rape and sexual assault, enslavement, trafficking, forced births, unlawful detention, institutional neglect (a prominent concern in discussions about migrant detention centers in the United States).
War crimes. War crimes can only follow a declaration of war, but can take place during an internal (civil) conflict or an external conflict (such as the ongoing war in Ukraine). War crimes are “serious” and “grave” violations of the Geneva Conventions and the laws of armed conflicts, and what constitutes a war crime can often overlap with both genocide and crimes against humanity. War crimes also encompass chemical warfare and using civilians as shields as well as attacking educational or religious buildings.
After narrowing that search, it’s time to move into how to disseminate that information and why.
FOR JOURNALISTS COVERING THESE CRIMES WHILE IN CONFLICT ZONES OR IN FOREIGN NATIONS THEMSELVES
The gathering of evidence surrounding these crimes can be tricky because nations have a lot of different laws about what evidence can hold up in court and what cannot, especially when interacting with the media—what you can and cannot report may not be immediately clear, and could land you in contempt of court. While gathering data, it’s important to also gather metadata: verifying timestamps, geotags, and any other identifiers of authenticity are important. Making sure you have that information on hand is vital to the success of your story and, if need be, when you turn over that evidence. If you need to get rid of evidence, the app eyeWitness will encrypt and store anything uploaded to their servers, but will delete it from the uploading source.
FOR JOURNALISTS REPORTING FROM HOME
Most journalists who are able to release that media will present their story in a succinct form and their sources will be easily verifiable. Fact-checking and employing checks on the metadata as well will make sure your reporting stays as up-to-date and accurate as possible. WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, and other communication apps are also a good way to get primary information from afar.
WHY REPORT THESE THINGS?
Journalism naturally calls for accountability, and our role can help bring the perpetrators of these horrific crimes to justice. “Bringing the perpetrators to justice is part of the way to reduce the level of international crime,” Toby Mendel, executive director of the Centre for Law and Democracy, says. “As with every crime, prosecuting people is an important part of the way of controlling the level of crime in society.”
