Abstract
This article combines quantitative and qualitative analysis to investigate the reporting of the Taliban conflict in Pakistan media and finds the coverage escalatory and elitist from the peace journalism perspective. While the security-related aspects of the conflict are highlighted, the problems of victims are ignored. The data for this study were collected through content analysis, discourse analysis and interviews with conflict reporters and analysts. The key findings of this study are quite consistent with the existing peace journalism scholarship that in conflict where national interests are involved, media become nationalistic and patriotic, leaving behind the considerations of quality and good journalism.
Introduction
More than a decade ago, Pakistani troops entered into the tribal area of Waziristan (bordering Afghanistan) to fight Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. It was the first time that Pakistani soldiers were stationed in that restive region—a move that angered the local Taliban sympathizers and triggered a decade-long deadly conflict between the Taliban and the Pakistani government. Since then, this south Asian nuclear-armed country has been mired in this seemingly unending war. According to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, as many as 50,000 people have died and many more injured in this conflict (
While the Taliban conflict has been the subject of a large number of academic debates in Pakistan, the analysis of the media’s role in this conflict has not received much attention. This study is designed to bridge this gap by critically analysing how the media report the conflict, what are the factors that determine media reportage and how a more constructive coverage of this conflict could be ensured.
Background to the Taliban Conflict
The world came to know about the Taliban (seminarians) for the first time in 1996 when they captured Kabul after a long internecine war, which started with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and its subsequent withdrawal in 1989. After the 9/11 incidents, the Taliban were accused of colluding with the prime suspect Osama Bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda, and soon a global alliance was formed against them (Rahsid, 2001, p. 12). Pakistan, an erstwhile friend of the Taliban regime, was now under pressure and had no other options but to join the global military alliance against terrorism (Musharraf, 2006, p. 23). This move by Islamabad offended the sympathizers of the Taliban regime in the Pakistan. However, the Taliban uprising in Pakistan did not start soon after the US’s invasion of Afghanistan in 2001; in fact, it started in 2004 when the Pakistan army started a military operation in the tribal areas of the country in an attempt to check the Al-Qaeda infiltration into Afghanistan as demanded by the US and NATO forces. This move did not auger well with the local tribesmen who were against this all-out support for the US against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. In fact, the policy of the military dictator, General Musharraf, to provide unflinching support to the US caught most Pakistanis unaware. Many say that even the US administration was surprised by this all-out support (Mackenzie, 2002).
Bewildered as they were, the Taliban elements in the tribal areas gathered under the platform of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and started fighting against the Pakistan army. Due to public support for the Taliban among the local tribesmen, the resistance movement became formidable and soon spread to other adjoining areas (Wazir, 2014). While the Pakistan army has used heavy weaponry including air strikes to wipe out the Taliban, the latter have carried out hundreds of attacks on Pakistani soldiers and civilians mainly in the settled areas neighbouring the tribal region and killed thousands of people.
In the tribal areas, however, no statistics are available to show how many tribesmen have been killed and injured in the conflict as the region is completely out of bound for journalists and humanitarian agencies. When this researcher visited parts of the area including South Waziristan and Khyber Agency in November 2014, the tribesmen’s informal estimates showed the death toll to be quite large. Due to security concerns and fears of reprisals from intelligence agencies, even the common tribesmen hesitate to discuss this issue in detail. The researcher being a local was able to manage this trip as non-locals are disallowed to enter these areas due to security reasons.
War, Peace and Media
The nexus between conflict and communication can be traced to ancient times, but in modern times, it has become almost impossible for powerful states to win wars without securing the information super highways that have netted the globe (Bratic, 2006; Hamelink, 2008; Knightley, 2002; Ottosen & Nohrsdet, 2010; Thussu & Freedman, 2003; Carruthers, 2008). Researchers have documented the news media’s role in the two World Wars, the entire Cold War, and the invasions of many Asian, African and South American states in the later half of the twentieth century (Knightley, 2004; Lynch & McGoldrick, 2005; Spencer, 2005). In all these major invasions, the media was predominantly controlled by warring states for strategic interests and dissent was disallowed (with significant exceptions like Seymour Hersh, Robert Fisk and others).
Moreover, the literature suggests the profession of journalism is predisposed towards wars and violence. The most prominent scholar of peace studies Johan Galtung and his colleague Marie Holmboe Ruge discussed this tendency as early as in 1965. The scholars found that news is determined by certain values, which contribute to conflict escalation (Galtung & Ruge, 1965). According to Wolsfeld (2001), news media have ‘vested interest in conflicts’. Media can maximize audiences (and hence more profits) when events of killings, injuries and devastation are reported (Nohrstedt, 2009). Howard (2003) locates this problem in the ethos of professional journalists who, though are interested in impartial reporting of conflicts, are inadvertently used by the conflicting parties to propagate their messages, which can substantially erode chances of peace and harmony.
The realization of the potential scope of media for peace purposes is not new, either. After the First World War, peace radios were set up for enhancing peace and harmony in Europe followed by further developments after the Second World War (Becker, 2004). The UNESCO declaration for media freedom (UNESCO, 1978) also supported efforts for harnessing media for creating greater understanding among nations. According to Galtung (2002), media apply two competitive frames of war or peace journalism while reporting conflicts. While the traditional media or war journalism is (a) violence oriented, (b) propaganda oriented, (c) elite oriented and (d) differences oriented; the alternative peace journalism is (a) peace oriented, (b) truth oriented, (c) people oriented and (d) solution oriented. This categorization of war/peace journalism has been widely applied by researchers while discussing media behaviour during conflicts.
The advocates of peace journalism lean on the literature on peace and conflict studies for guidance. They agree that conflicts can never be wiped out completely but these should not degenerate into violence (Galtung, 2002). Media can be used effectively for presenting conflicts in a broader perspective (parties, goals and issues) and convince people that violence is the problem and there are ways to resolve conflicts amicably (Lynch & McGoldrick, 2005; Ottosen, 2008; Ottosen, 2010; Shinar, 2007; Kempf, 2003).
No matter how noble the cause of peace journalism is, it is still considered a normative approach to journalism profession and has not been welcomed by many journalism scholars and practitioners (Fawcett, 2002; Hanitzsch, 2007; Loyn, 2007; Lynch, 2007). These scholars believe that peace journalism is not practically possible due to a number of reasons including violence being a sellable commodity (journalistic cliché: if it bleeds, it leads), tight guidelines on journalists that limit the scope for detailed reports about conflict, competition to break the story, journalists’ obsession with objectivity (Hackett, 2006; Lynch, 2008). Last but not the least, peace journalism is criticized for being subjective (Kempf, 2007; Loyn, 2007). According to Thomas Hanitzsch (2007), journalism if not based on the ideal of objectivity is public relations or advocacy but not professional journalism.
Peace journalism scholars (Kempf, 2012; Lynch, 2014 and many others) have quite convincingly addressed much of the above criticism. It is now increasingly being discussed as quality/good journalism, which is embedded in the theory and practice of professional reporting of conflicts (Lynch, 2014). Doing peace journalism is not advocacy for peace but asking the ‘right questions’ and taking the right perspectives (Galtung, 2006). Scholars agree that a shift towards peace journalism does not require an altogether departure from traditional journalism—rather a subtle shift is required to focus on people and peace (Shinar & Kempf, 2014).
This study is an attempt to check the plausibility of peace journalism as quality journalism by empirically investigating how the Taliban conflict is reported, issues that influence media reportage and how to devise a strategy for a more constructive coverage. The key research questions are:
RQ1. How is the Taliban conflict reported in Pakistan print and electronic media? RH1: Pakistan media would predominantly report the Taliban conflict from war journalism perspective. RH2: Pakistan media would predominantly report the Taliban conflict from national security perspective. RH3: Pakistan media would predominantly report the Taliban conflict from similar perspectives. RQ2. What are the main discursive features of the media reporting of Taliban conflict? RQ3. What are the important issues that influence media reporting of Taliban conflict?
Research Methodology
This study uses a mixed design of both qualitative and quantitative research methods to address the research questions. For quantitative analysis, content analysis of selected media outlets is conducted and for qualitative analysis, discourse analysis and interviews of conflict journalists and analysts are conducted. Here is a brief description of each of these techniques.
Content Analysis
This study applies the War and Peace Journalism Model developed by Johan Galtung and a Contextual Model of Conflict Escalation and De-escalation (originally introduced by this researcher) to analyse media reporting of the Taliban conflict. The Galtung model consists of dualistic categories of (a) peace versus violence, (b) truth versus propaganda, (c) people versus elite and (d) solution versus differences. Similarly, the contextual model consists of competitive categories of (a) humanization versus securitization, (b) compatibility versus incompatibility and (c) We’ness versus otherness.
The themes in Models 1 and 2 were operationalized by the researcher and coders were trained to collect reliable data. The strength of this study comes from the combination of these two models, while the Galtung model is generic, the contextual model is specific to Pakistani settings.
The sample for the content analysis consisted of the two leading English language newspapers (Dawn and Nation), two leading Urdu newspapers (Jang and Express) and two leading television channels (Geo TV and Dunya TV). The idea behind this selection was to get a more representative sample of national media in Pakistan. The time period for data collection was from November 2012 to November 2013 when the conflict was at its peak. For the four newspapers, just the front and back pages were selected for five days from Monday to Friday. Similarly for the two television channels, the 9 pm newscasts were analysed for five days in a week from Monday to Friday. Six MPhil students in media studies at Riphah University were trained as coders. The reliability tests were applied and the score was higher than 85 per cent for all the coders. The study does not include local press because the objective of the researcher was to analyse the journalistic practices of national media. So, the exclusion of the local press would be considered limitations of this study.
Galtung Model of War and Peace Journalism
The Context-specific Model of Conflict Escalation and De-escalation
Critical Discourse Analysis
Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is the direct outcome of linguistic approach to social theory developed by the French social theorist Michel Foucault in the 1960s and 1970s (Fairclough, 1995). It can be defined as ‘an analysis of written and spoken texts to reveal the discursive sources of power, dominance, inequality and bias. It examines how these discursive sources are maintained and reproduced within specific social, political and historical contexts’ (Van Dijk, 2003).
Though CDA has different strands, the researcher will apply Fairclough’s approach for its emphasis on (a) textual analysis, (b) the production process and (c) the extra-media factors that influence media reportage. Following Fairclough (1995) for the textual analysis, as many as 30 news stories were selected and intensively analysed to unravel the hidden meanings in the text. Similarly, for the second stage of production process, interviews with conflict reporters and editors were conducted to know the key professional issues that impact media reportage. Finally for the third stage of analysing extra-media factors, a top military and Taliban official were interviewed alongside security and media analysts to know the broad range of issues that influence reporting of Taliban conflict in Pakistan media.
Three different samples were selected for each of the three stages in Critical Discourse Analysis. For the first stage of textual analysis, five stories from each of the six media outlets were selected (hence total 30 news stories) and put to an intensive textual analysis. For the second stage of production analysis, one beat reporter of Taliban conflict stationed in Peshawar and one editor stationed in Islamabad from each of these six outlets (hence total six reporters and six editors) were interviewed. For the third stage of determining extra-media factors, one army official, one Taliban leader and three media experts and three security affairs experts were interviewed to analyse the broad range of issues that influence media reporting of Taliban conflict.
The researcher also visited two of the tribal agencies (South Waziristan and Khyber Agency) and saw the situation himself in the first week of November in 2014. However, the field observations are not part of any formal analysis in this study rather the key arguments would be gleaned from the content analysis part and interviews with journalists and experts.
Research Findings
The findings from this research are presented in the form of addressing the three research questions and the embedded hypotheses therein.
RQ1. How is the Taliban conflict reported in Pakistan print and electronic media?
RH1: Pakistan media would predominantly report the Taliban conflict from war journalism perspective.
Distribution of Escalatory/De-escalatory News Stories in Conflict Reporting
As shown in Table 1, the conflict is predominantly reported in escalatory terms as revealed by the low Pearson chi-square test value (0.000) for both the models. Previous studies on the same conflict also found preponderance of war journalism (Hussain, 2014; Siraj & Hussain, 2012). The conflict is primarily reported as a tug of war between Pakistan security forces and the Taliban fighters where the stories of killings and injuries were prioritized. The remarks of conflicting parties received lager coverage, while the problems of common tribesmen remained under-reported.
During interviews, the reporters and editors were openly critical of the Taliban for their ‘anti-state activities’ and advocated the use of force against them to resolve this conflict (Hussain, 2011). They defended media jingoism, as peace talks were not an option with the ‘country’s enemies’. An editor of the Daily Nation, Majid Bhatti, said ‘when national security is under threat, journalists don’t need to be neutral’. He agreed that patriotism and national solidarity must be prioritized over the idealistic journalistic norms of objectivity and balance (personal communication, November, 2013). However, not everyone is happy with this type of media reporting. Pakistan’s former ambassador to Afghanistan, Ayaz Wazir, lamented that media reporting was wrapped in national frenzy with little regard to the sufferings of common people (personal communication, November 2013).
RH2: Pakistan media would predominantly report the Taliban conflict from national security perspective.
The second important aspect of media reporting of the Taliban conflict is the emphasis on the national security perspective. The Pakistan news media seldom discuss other issues originating from this conflict such as the problems of about one million displaced people, the pathetic conditions at camps and the acute traumatic disorder from which the children suffer. As shown in Table 2, the media predominantly reported on events that are related to the security theme and excluded other aspects.
Dominant Frames in Reporting of Taliban Conflict
*Chi-square 24.54; P value: 0.000.
All the journalists interviewed for this study termed it a major security conflict where national integrity was at risk. When asked why the sufferers were ignored, they said it was the by-product of the conflict and could only be resolved once the Taliban were wiped out. An army official who later requested anonymity called it a ‘battle for national solidarity’ and was happy at the media for being nationalistic and patriotic. However, the Taliban leader (whose name is not revealed for security reasons) said they had no territorial intention but rather wanted ‘sharia’ in the country. In fact, since 2004, the enforcement of Islamic law in tribal areas is their major demand and successive governments have agreed for this provision but could not abide by it due to US pressure.
RH3. Pakistan media would predominantly report the Taliban conflict from similar perspectives.
The third important aspect of conflict reporting is the similarity in contents of all the six media outlets, which were selected for analysis in this study. There were no clear differences in the editorial guidelines of these media organizations and hence primarily reported the Taliban conflict from security perspective as shown in Table 3 (chi-square 5.17; p: 0.144). During interviews, the researcher was told by reporters and editors that this unanimity was due to the fact that this conflict was a ‘battle for Pakistan’ and they considered it less newsworthy to focus on any other aspect of the conflict. A reporter said he often got advice from his editor to highlight the brutalities of Taliban. An editor of an English daily said that the conflict was going on for the last decade and the old themes, problems of displaced people, trauma, damages to infrastructure and other similar issues had outlived their newsworthiness in the competitive media sector. Violent stories, on the other hand, are better poised to be qualifying the criteria for engaging people and hence reporters focus on them (Nohrstedt, 2009).
RQ2. What are the main discursive features of the media reporting of Taliban conflict?
Pakistan media mainly reported the Taliban conflict in two related discursive strategies of (a) skirmishes with army and (b) their association with Al-Qaeda.
Securitization of Taliban Conflict Across Media Outlets
When on 25 April 2013, the Taliban attacked a jail in Bannu district (a business corridor for the tribal areas) and freed some of their comrades, the event proved to be a banner headline for three consecutive days in Pakistan media. The daily Jang reported ‘militants were armed with sophisticated weaponry’ (Jang, 25 April 2013) and the Nation reported that ‘hardcore extremists’ were freed and that the ‘tall beard men’ yelled ‘Allah is the greatest’ (The Nation, 25 April 2013). The Dawn reported an exclusive story on the release of Taliban leader Adnan Rashid by the ‘heavily armed militants’. The story elaborated nature of the conflict saying ‘Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan is the biggest threat, staging suicide bombings and attacks on military compounds’. Other incidents of violence are reported in the same vein where ‘our’ soldiers are fighting the ‘other’ Taliban. While media frequently used attributes like ‘gallant forces, patriotic, saviours’ for Pakistan army, the Taliban are denigrated as ‘terrorists, miscreants, and agents of enemies’. The reporters and editors agreed these attributes had professional consensus and had to be observed. One editor said the ‘Taliban are the enemies’ and hence treated accordingly. The military official said this was a national war and media must be patriotic, lending credence to the works of other researchers that during wars, media are pressured to show nationalistic and patriotic content (Knightley, 2004; Lynch & Galtung, 2010). The Taliban leader, however, told this researcher that it was unfair on the part of Pakistan media to side with the army. He demanded that media must be impartial in this conflict.
Notwithstanding the reporting of mainstream media, ground realities are quite different. Thousands of innocent people have been killed in the drone attacks (The Guardian, 24 November 2014) yet the Pakistan media would simply report that only terrorists were killed. Of late, there is some change in the media approach and news stories at times would suggest that some common people might have been killed in the attacks. The researcher himself being a resident of tribal areas and having interactions with many tribesmen has met dozen of families who have lost their dear ones in drone attacks. Since the Pakistan army is not allowing journalists in the region, media are solely dependent on the press releases issued by the army. As this war is wrapped in nationalism and the journalists form mainland Pakistan carry the same biases, the poor victims are often ignored and declared Taliban and Al-Qaeda members when killed in these drone attacks. Likewise, Pakistan army has air bombarded the region for years, and though the number of casualties is unknown, many tribesmen say that majority of the people have been innocent civilians.
The second important strategy is to report Taliban as synonymous with Al-Qaeda to generate greater hate for them. For example, on 21 April 2012, The Nation while warning of the imminent threats posed by Taliban reported that Pakistan would suffer immensely if Taliban win the war in Afghanistan. The report though verging on mere speculations makes a strong case for taking violent action against the Taliban. The Jang published a two-column story based on the revelations by a US official in Islamabad that Al-Qaeda has been debilitated after the killing of Osama Bin Laden but the allied organizations are still a threat to his country. The reference to the Taliban is significant as it connects it with Al-Qaeda and being a threat to America, Pakistan will be pressured to pursue a military operation against the organization. The report ignores the fact that Al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban have for long disowned Pakistani Taliban. Pakistani Taliban agreed to sign peace deals with the government, which the government later violated amid pressure from the US government. The media ignore these issues and as a result majority of people have no critical knowledge about this conflict. As reporters are disallowed to enter these areas, objective and fair coverage of this conflict is impossible.
RQ3. What are the important issues that influence media reporting of Taliban conflict?
The three important factors that were identified after detailed interviews with conflict reporters: editors, media analysts, stakeholders and security experts can be summarized in three main categories of (a) influence of personal views, (b) security threats to reporters and (c) news worthiness of violence.
Regarding the first category, though journalists usually do not allow and seldom confess that their personal views are influenced by their professional duties, however, in the case of this conflict, they confessed their reporting was influenced by patriotic sentiments. The journalists deliberately side with the army, for they consider Taliban as disruptive and malignant forces. They believed Taliban were despised all over the country and there was a consensus to call them terrorists and miscreants who were killing our security forces and innocent people. ‘Even if I report them as militants, our editors will edit it into terrorists’ said a reporter. According to an editor, there is no mechanism to get balanced reporting of this conflict because the Taliban ‘cannot be provided the same platform where they can air their obnoxious agenda’.
Besides this nationalistic stance, another factor that impacts the reportage of this conflict is the security threats for journalists. Reporters told this researcher that they could not investigate; delve deeper into the conflict to come up with a critical analysis. ‘As a reporter you have to thread a fine line and avoid the annoyance of both Taliban and security forces’, says Abdullah Jan of Geo TV. Another reporter said we simply rely on security forces for information. ‘If you come with a new information exposing either side, you are in danger’ he said. Besides life threats, reporters also identified a list of other problems, including lacking independent sources from where to get facts and figures about casualties, access to the troubled areas, maintaining balance in the story and pressures from head offices to protect vehicle, camera, DSNG. One reporter confided, ‘Management is always concerned about any damage to equipment rather than for the lives of journalists’.
While the journalists agreed that the poor tribesmen of war-affected tribal areas were the worst sufferers, still the security aspect was important for them than the peoples’ perspectives. They feared that too much focus on the plight of the sufferers might affect the outcome of the war and demoralize the soldiers. They wanted the ‘cleansing campaign’ to be successful and agreed that humanization of this conflict was not a viable consideration. ‘Usually when we want to report on humanitarian issues, camera and crew are denied to us because this is the less important aspect of the conflict’, said Musaratullah Jan of Dunya TV. Others said they valued violence-related stories because it qualified the criterion of a news story in a conflict zone. They believed that violence, drama and sensation make good stories, which attract more audience and increase the popularity and profits of their media organizations.
Conclusion
Independent analysts in Pakistan believe that a solution to the Taliban conflict is mainly oriented in two important aspects of this conflict. Firstly, Pakistan’s policy towards Afghanistan and secondly, the local support for Taliban in the tribal region. Regarding the first issue, unless Pakistan respects the integrity of Afghanistan and starts a non-intervention policy, peace in Afghanistan will remain elusive, having boomerang effects in the tribal areas. It is an open secret that Pakistan is supporting the Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan to check the influence of India (an arch foe of Pakistan). This lopsided policy has estranged other elements that are active against Pakistan and fermenting terrorism. Likewise, the mainland Pakistanis and the establishment have to fathom the reality that the tribal people prefer the Islamic system of Taliban. In the past 12 years, the Taliban could not be weakened and in fact, they have become more popular among the tribesmen. Of late, there is a change of heart and the Taliban have shown willingness to be mainstreamed into the national polity and the government needs to pay heed to it.
Judging from the perspective of the above two observations, the Pakistani media is devoid of constructive debates on this conflict. Pakistani media need to ask these tough questions which the proponents of peace journalism describe as ‘asking good questions’ (Lynch, 2014). Had Pakistani military listened to the people before joining the war on terror in 2001, the situation would have been different. Had the US allowed the Pakistani army to deal with the Taliban, the result would have been different. Pakistani media never conducted critical debates on these important issues and simply towed the military lines supported the official narrative in shaping this conflict. This is in line with dozens of studies conducted by peace journalism researchers that during national wars, media become nationalistic, propagandist and reduce the conflict to zero-sum orientation (Knightley, 2004; Lynch, 2006; Ross, 2006; Wolsfeld, 2004).
As the first two research questions reveal the Pakistani media aggressively report this conflict in escalatory terms, and keep a constant pressure on the government to take forceful actions against the Taliban, who are framed as terrorists, yahoos, thugs and foes. Reporters do it deliberatively for national interest and predominantly ignore the sufferings and miseries of ordinary tribesmen. Despite aggressive propaganda campaigns and back-to-back military operations, this years-long complex battle has not yet been won, instead, the situation has worsened. Elsewhere I have written (Hussain, 2014; Siraj & Hussain, 2012) about the acute humanitarian crisis in the tribal region. Houses, properties, businesses and agricultural lands have been destroyed in the conflict. People have lived nightmarish days at refugee camps and they simply shudder to think of going back to these camps. Trauma and psychological ills reign supreme. In the two agencies of Waziristan, people and specially the children are dreaded by flying drones and gunship helicopters. A strange psychosis has gripped the region and one wonders how the next generation of tribesmen would cope with life, rendered poor by the horrors of war. During my field observations, 12-year-old Yusuf told me that his heart pumps out when he sees the hovering jets in the air. But the media has conveniently ignored all these factors. This media obliviousness has grim implications for the Pakistan society. The majority of Pakistanis consider it a security conflict, where use of force is considered to be the only option (Hussain, 2014). The media have been successful in instilling insecurities in public mind and made them ready for wars. Those who disagree are looked down with disdain and condemned as anti-Pakistani.
This study offers some suggestions for improvement. The media need to consider the conflict from humanitarian perspective. The poor tribesmen are the real sufferers who are languishing in refugee camps, whose kith and kin have been killed at the hands of both army and Taliban fighters, whose businesses have been destroyed and who are deprived of their basic human rights and basic human needs. The poor tribesmen are the real stakeholders and the conflict needs to be narrated from their perspective unlike the prevalent elitist and securitized narrations. Moreover, media need to properly contextualize the conflict and shed light on the background of this conflict, the interests of different stakeholders. In the recent past, it has been observed that the Pakistani Taliban have no territorial ambitions rather they want Islamic system in the tribal areas. This must not be an issue with the government as the country’s constitution envisions an Islamic welfare state. This study suggests peace agreements with Taliban and the mainstreaming of tribal region as a panacea for which media need to play its role.
However, the above findings should not lead one to assume that bringing peace to this region would be an easy task. The wounds are serious and patience is required. For a long-term and sustainable peace in the disturbed areas, a multi-pronged strategy is needed, which starts with an immediate cessation to violence, rehabilitation of the internally displaced people and mainstreaming these far-flung areas through infrastructure development and by uplifting the living standards of these historically neglected people. In this regard, the media can play a constructive role by highlighting this humanitarian crisis, informing the citizenry about the daunting task of winning the hearts and minds of tribesmen and mobilizing the public opinion in favour of a peaceful resolution of this deadly conflict.