Jake Lynch

Past Member of the Board of Directors

Jake Lynch_Sm

Associate Professor and Director, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies
Mackie Building K01
University of Sydney
NSW 2006
Australia

Secretary General, International Peace Research Association

Tele: (61) (0) 2 9351 5440
Mobile: (61) (0) 420 980010

Biography

Associate Professor Jake Lynch, PhD (City University, London) is Director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS) at the University of Sydney; an Executive Member of the Sydney Peace Foundation and Secretary General of the International Peace Research Association, having organized and hosted its Sydney conference in July 2010.

Jake has spent the past 14 years researching, developing, teaching and training in peace journalism – and practising it, as an experienced international reporter in television and newspapers. He was an on-air presenter, anchoring over a thousand half-hour news bulletins for BBC World TV. Before that, he was the Sydney Correspondent for the London Independent newspaper, and a Political Correspondent for Sky News.

Since 1999 up to the present day, Jake has led training workshops in peace journalism for professional editors and reporters, and in media skills for peace workers, in many countries including Fiji, Indonesia, the Philippines, Nepal, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Cyprus, Armenia, Georgia, Norway and the UK. Clients have included the British Council, Council of Europe, DANIDA, GTZ, SIDA, NORAD, the Olof Palme Memorial Fund and the Australian Commonwealth government.

Publications include several books and many book chapters and refereed articles on peace and peace journalism. In 2008, Jake was guest editor of a special edition of the Routledge scholarly journal, Global Change, Peace and Security, with contributions based on presentations to a major conference he organized at the University of Sydney.

He is also the author of several think-tank reports and innumerable articles in public media including the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian and the Canberra Times. He is the on-screen host of The Peace Report, a streamed television program produced by the New Matilda current affairs website. In 2009-2010 he wrote a weekly column, combining commentary on world affairs with media analysis and literacy issues, for the TRANSCEND Media Service website. He is a regular contributor to radio and television. Jake has senior production credits on three documentary films, including the multi-award winning Soldiers of Peace, narrated by the Hollywood actor, Michael Douglas.

In 2009, he won a prestigious competitive grant, worth half a million dollars, from the Australian Research Council, to investigate prospects for devising a Global Standard for reporting conflict, in partnership with the International Federation of Journalists and the aid agency, Act for Peace.

Teaching interests

Jake contributes teaching to a broad cross-section of study modules, at both Undergraduate and Postgraduate level, in the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney. Among the units Jake coordinates:

• Key Issues in Peace and Conflict Studies (core unit);
• Human Rights, Peace and Justice;
• Political Economy of Conflict and Peace;
• Conflict-resolving Media.

The last of these is now being split into two, with a second unit, Information Interventions in Conflict, now due to be offered in 2011, coordinated by Jake with colleagues from the Department of Media and Communications and contributions from practitioners in related fields.

Among the units to which Jake has contributed teaching:

• Nonviolence and social change;
• The UN and International Conflict Resolution;
• Peace and the Environment;
• Religion, War and Peace;
• Dissertation Part 1;
• History and Politics of War and Peace (Undergraduate).

Academic career and qualifications

2010: Elected Secretary General of the International Peace Research Association.
2009-2010: Co-Chief Investigator, University of Sydney Institute for Social Science/World Universities Network Project, Re-Imagining International Criminal Justice (and panel convenor).
2009-2012: Chief Investigator, Australian Research Council Linkage Project, A Global Standard for Reporting Conflict.
2008-2010: Chair of Organising Committee, International Peace Research Association biennial conference, Sydney 2010.
2009: Appointed to Executive Committee of the Sydney Peace Foundation.
2007: PhD, City University, London.
2007-2008: Convener of Peace Journalism Commission, International Peace Research Association.
2006: Appointed Associate Professor and Director, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney.
2005-2006: Co-Chief Investigator, Peace Journalism international research project, Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research.
2005: Appointed to the International Advisory Council of the Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research.
2002-present: Part time course coordinator, Transcend Peace University.
2002-2006: Casual lecturer and supervisor, universities of Sydney and Queensland, Australia; Cardiff, UK; Orebro, Sweden; Oslo University College, Norway and European Peace University, Stadtschlaining, Austria.
1989: Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism Studies (Distinction), Cardiff University.
1988: BA English (First Class Honours), Cardiff University.

Invited keynote lectures:

• ‘Media and peace: challenges and opportunities’, Suva, Fiji, 2010;
• Point of Peace (Nobel Peace Laureates conference), Stavanger, Norway, 2008;
• Communication is Peace (World Association for Christian Communication), Cape Town, South Africa, 2008;
• ‘Promoting Dissent, Reviving Democracy’, Sydney Peace Foundation Tenth Anniversary Lecture, Sydney, Australia, 2007;
• International Peace Research Association, global conference, Calgary, Canada, 2006.

Journalism career (highlights)

2001-2006: On-screen presenter (anchor) and reporter, BBC Television News, London.
1997-8 and 1999-2001: Political Correspondent, Sky News, London.
1998-1999: Sydney Correspondent, London Independent.
2001-2005: Director, Reporting the World, journalism think-tank, London (funding from Department for International Development, UK Government).
1999-present: Freelance professional trainer in peace journalism and in media skills for peace NGOs.

Books

2011: (co-editor) Expanding Peace Journalism, Sydney: Sydney University Press.
2010: Reporting Conflict: New Directions in Peace Journalism, St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, with Johan Galtung.
2008: Debates in Peace Journalism, Sydney: Sydney University Press.
2006: Reporteando Conflictos, Mexico City: Montiel & Soriano Editores, with Johan Galtung and Annabel McGoldrick.
2005: Peace Journalism, with Annabel McGoldrick, Stroud: Hawthorn Press.
2002: Reporting the World, Taplow: Conflict and Peace Forums.

Book chapters

2011: ‘Can the centre hold? Prospects for mobilising media activism around public service broadcasting using peace journalism’, in Ibrahim Shaw, Robert Hackett and Jake Lynch (eds), Expanding Peace Journalism, Sydney: Sydney University Press.
2011: ‘Political spectacle and immigration: media representations of asylum seekers during the “war on terrorism”’, in Des Freedman and Daya Thussu (eds), Media and terrorism: Global Perspectives, London: Sage.
2010: ‘Propaganda, War, Peace and the Media’ in Richard Keeble, John Tulloch and Florian Zollmann (eds), Peace Journalism, War and Conflict Resolution. London: Peter Lang Inc.
2010: ‘A Global Standard for Reporting Conflict and Peace’ (with Annabel McGoldrick) in Richard Keeble, John Tulloch and Florian Zollmann (eds), Peace Journalism, War and Conflict Resolution. London: Peter Lang Inc.
2010: ‘Peace Journalism’, in Stuart Allan (ed), Routledge Companion to News and Journalism Studies, Routledge, Oxford.
2010: ‘How to improve reporting of the war in Afghanistan: feminize it!’, with Annabel McGoldrick and Indra Adnan, in John Mair and Richard Keeble (eds), Afghanistan, War and the Media: Deadlines and Frontlines, Bury St Edmunds: Arima Publishers.
2010: ‘Peace journalism: variations on a theme by Johan Galtung’, in Jorgen Johansen and John Y Jones (eds), Experiments with Peace: Celebrating Peace on Johan Galtung’s 80th Birthday, Oxford: Pambazuka Press.
2009: ‘Coalition of the unwilling: the phenomenology and political economy of US militarism’, in Lynda Blanchard and Leah Chan (eds) Ending War, Building Peace, Sydney University Press, Sydney.
2009: ‘International Law and Israel’s Assault on Gaza’ in Luc Reychler, Julianne Funk Deckard and Kevin HR Villanueva (eds), Building Sustainable Futures: Enacting Peace and Development, University of Deusto Press, Bilbao.
2008: ‘Peace Journalism and its discontents’, in Wilhelm Kempf (ed) The Peace Journalism Controversy, Regener, Berlin.
2007: ‘Peace Journalism’, with Annabel McGoldrick, in Johan Galtung and Charles Webel (eds), Routledge Handbook of Peace and Conflict Studies, Routledge, Oxford.
2007: ‘A course in Peace Journalism’, in Dov Shinar and Wilhelm Kempf (eds) Peace Journalism – The State of the Art, Regener, Berlin.
2005: ‘Peace Journalism – A Global Dialog for Democracy and Democratic Media’, with Annabel McGoldrick, in Robert A Hackett and Yuezhi Zhao (eds), Democratizing Global Media, Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham.
2004: ‘Reporting the World: an ethical challenge to international news’ in Media in Security and Governance, editor Maria Caparini, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden.
2004: ‘Peace Journalism in Indonesia’, with Annabel McGoldrick, in Agents of Peace – Public Communication and Conflict Resolution in an Asian Setting, editors Thomas Hanitzsch, Martin Loffelholz and Ronny Mustamu, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Jakarta.
2004: ‘Reporting the World’ in International News in the 21st Century editors Chris Paterson and Annabelle Sreberny, John Libbey, Eastleigh.
2003: ‘Tips for Covering Conflict’, with Annabel McGoldrick, in Media Wars – News at a time of terror, editor Danny Schechter, Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham.
2000: The Media in Conflicts – Accomplices or Mediators? Chapter by Jake Lynch, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Berlin.
1999: The Kosovo News & Propaganda War, Chapter by Jake Lynch, International Press Institute, Vienna.

Articles in refereed journals

2011: ‘Review essay: Understanding Peacekeeping by Alex J Bellamy and Paul D Williams with Stuart Griffin; Under Attack: Challenges to the Rules Governing the International Use of Force by Belinda Helmke; and Preventing Genocide: Practical Steps toward Early Detection and Effective Action by David A Hamburg’, Australian Journal of International Affairs (ERA rating = A), in press.
2010: ‘Defending John Pilger’s journalism on Israel and Palestine’, Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics (ERA rating = A) vol 7, no 4.
2008: ‘Active and passive peace journalism in reporting of the ‘War on Terrorism’ in The Philippines’, Peace and Policy, vol 13.
2008: ‘Modernisation or participatory development: the emerging divide in journalist training for conflict-affected societies’, Global Change, Peace and Security, vol 20 no 3.
2008: ‘What works – and what doesn’t. New directions in conflict intervention’, Global Change, Peace and Security, vol 20 no 3.
2007: ‘Peace Journalism and its discontents’, Conflict and Communication Online, vol 6 no 2.
2007: ‘A reply to the replies’, Conflict and Communication Online, vol 6 no 2.
2006: ‘What’s so great about Peace Journalism?’, Global Media Journal, Spring edition.
2005: ‘War and Peace Journalism in the Holy Land’ Social Alternatives, vol 24 no 1.
2004: ‘Reporting Iraq – what went right? What went wrong’ in Mediactive Issue 3, Mediawar editor Anita Biressi, Barefoot Publications, London.
2002: Conflict, Security & Development Group Bulletin, King’s College, London, Issue Number 14: ‘Journalist Ethics and Reporting Terrorism’.

Book reviews in scholarly journals

2009: Virtuous War by James Der Derian (for War and the Media Network).
2009: The Responsibility to Protect by Alex Bellamy (for the Australian Journal of International Affairs).
2009: The Responsibility to Protect by Gareth Evans (for the Australian Journal of Political Science).
2009: Stealth Conflicts by Virgil Hawkins (for the Journal of Peace Education)
2007: Language Wars by Jeff Lewis (for Social Semiotics).

Other papers and reports

2011: The Political Economy of Conflict and Peace, occasional paper, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney.
2010: Becoming Media-Savvy – a guide for social movements, with Annabel McGoldrick, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney.
2010: ‘The “Asia Pacific”: cooperation or a new cold war?’ in (eds) Susan Wareham and Michelle Fahy, Options 2030, Medical Action to Prevent War, Melbourne.
2007: Promoting Dissent, Reviving Democracy, Sydney Peace Foundation Tenth Anniversary Lecture, Occasional Paper 1/2007, CPACS, University of Sydney.
2007: Blundering In – the Australia-Indonesia security treaty and the humanitarian crisis in West Papua, with Jim Elmslie and Peter King, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney.
2001: Jurnalisme Damai – Bagaimana Melakukannya?, with Annabel McGoldrick, British Council, Jakarta (Bahasa Indonesia version of Peace Journalism: How to do it?).
2001: Reporting the World concept document, Conflict & Peace Forums.
1999: PJO 2 – What Are Journalists For? Conflict & Peace Forums.
1998: The Peace Journalism Option, Conflict & Peace Forums.

Documentary films

2008: (credited as Script Development and Peace Consultant and co-camera operator) Soldiers of Peace, One Tree Films, directed by Tim Wise and narrated by Michael Douglas, and winner of five international film festival awards: ‘The World Shift’ Award at Cannes Film Festival 2009; Golden Ace Award at Las Vegas International Film Festival 2009; Best Documentary, Monaco International Film Festival 2008; ‘Best Political Documentary’ and ‘Best Cinematography for a Documentary’, Aon Film Festival, Pasadena, 2009.
2007: Peace Journalism in the Philippines, by Jake Lynch and Annabel McGoldrick, Australian Centre for Independent Journalism, University of Technology, Sydney.
2004: News from the Holy Land – Peace Journalism, theory and practice 50 mins with 40 pp teaching notes, by Jake Lynch and Annabel McGoldrick, Hawthorn Press, Stroud, UK and Films for the Humanities, Princeton, NJ.