Journalism & armed conflict in Africa: the civil war in Sierra Leone

Unusually for discussions of the press in West Africa, this article is written by a journalist‐academic, who for a large part of 1990s worked for the Sierra Leonenan human rights newspaper For Di People,reporting on and analysing the civil war in Sierra Leone. Drawing on his experience, he sets out in detail the nature of accusations of bias against the local and foreign media in Sierra Leone, accusations made not only by interested parties, but also by a wide range of readers or listeners, and which have been seen as materially affecting the course of the war and attempts at mediation and peace‐making. A variety of reasons for vulnerability to such accusations are then examined, including the exigencies of war reporting, journalistic practice in Sierra Leone, the political economy of the press, and the problems created both by harsh government restrictions on press freedom and the media's response to them. The article argues that while there are instances of overt and calculated bias in reporting of the civil war, it is very difficult to draw a clear distinction between ‘intended’ and ‘unintended’ bias.