ABSTRACT
This chapter intends to examine how journalists perceived their role in reporting the peace process, and to establish what they saw as the main influential factors and pressures when reporting peace (Appendix 1). Journalistic practice notably relies on a range of techniques and conventions which are far too extensive to address in any meaningful way here (Gans 1980; Yorke 1995), but what this part of the study does aim to do, is to examine how journalists saw their role as information-providers of the peace process and how they perceived their interactions with the politics of it. Although is should be said at the outset that when being interviewed many journalists had problems describing the specifics of reporting peace, and tended to comment more on the everyday pressures and routines of making news, they nevertheless did articulate a number of similar concerns and priorities which they saw as influential on reporting the peace process. Those concerns and priorities help determine the shape of this analysis and the issues which arise within it.
