How often is a conflict portrayed in our news as a tug-of-war, a zero sum game between two parties at loggerheads over one issue? Think back to coverage of the Kosovo crisis, characterized as "The Serbs" versus "The Albanian Kosovars." Put it like this, and an inch gained by one side can only be the same inch lost by the other, so both cannot win at the same time. And if only one issue divides them, how can the motives for unexpected behavior be explained?

A classic from Newsweek: the obduracy of President Milosevic was attributable to the influence of his wife, "an extremist even more fanatical than himself." Extremists and fanatics cannot be reasoned with and must, perforce, be coerced into "backing down" — a logic which makes violence seem inevitable as a means of settling disputes.

Peace journalism looks at matters differently. It maps a conflict as a roundtable, consisting of many parties, many issues. A complex, interlocking pattern of fears, inequities and resentments which can only be overcome by seeking, devising, and implementing complex, interlocking solutions. Focusing, for instance, on the continuing plight of Serbian refugees in Serbia — their ranks growing before, during, and after NATO's bombing — breaches the bipolar model by deconstructing the categories of victim and oppressor in this decade of Balkan upheavals. In doing so, it also identifies one factor in explaining Yugoslavia's violent response to any secessionist force.

Sure, those grievances were cynically manipulated by unscrupulous politicians, but they had to be there to manipulate in the first place: any settlement capable of bringing lasting peace has to engage with them. This provides a key insight in some of the more imaginative peace plans for the region.

In the same way, anti-independence sentiment in East Timor was, by all means, manipulated from Jakarta, but at the root of it lay the fears of transmigratees. They were the standard-bearers for Indonesia's post-colonial settlement — in a country where living standards had suddenly plummeted in a financial crisis precipitated by Western banks, and scapegoating of newcomers had already brought widespread violence.

Humanize all sides, insist on parity of esteem for testimony in place of worthy and unworthy victimhood, and the structural factors perpetuating a conflict become visible. Because blame cannot therefore be pinned on one, demonized party, suddenly it makes sense to encircle, balance and neutralize those factors if the causes of violence are to be removed. This is not something you can do with more violence.

But how to connect with hidden or marginalized perspectives, given the stridency with which dominant voices propel their own version of events to the top of the agenda? One of these dominant voices — the British government's spin-doctor Alastair Campbell — said it was essential to try to hold the public interest "on our terms" in the Kosovo crisis. Western speakers kept on berating Milosevic and repeating the most exaggerated scare stories about "The Serbs" because they were elevated by journalists directly to the top of the news agenda as accomplished fact.

Military hardware — HMS Invincible and Ocean, the Apache helicopters — was dispatched to the war zone not for effect — which was minimal, even zero — but to create helpful "facts" for reporters to report. The gratifying response to fact or statement X provides an incentive, in a feedback loop of cause and effect, for the provision of fact or statement Y.

It has to be understood that there is no agenda-free reporting. All reporting contains an agenda, whether wittingly or otherwise. Neither is it useful to ask who put it there, since the feedback loop means the answer is — everyone did. Fortunately, there are road-tested alternatives to hand, discussed in our publications, The Peace Journalism Option and What Are Journalists For?

Break the umbilical cord with official information sources, which has London or Washington "confirming" things reporters cannot possibly check for themselves while Belgrade (for example) only ever "claims" them.

Privileged perspectives are camouflaged with "said to be," "thought to be," and "it being seen as." Instead, peace journalism should alert audiences to a world of perspectives. Equip them to ask, who wants me to believe this, and why? And pick up ideas for peaceful outcomes and solutions, whoever suggests them. Then news could start to provide incentives for conflicts to be resolved non-violently.

For more on peace journalism see the POIESIS Conflict and Peace Forums.

- Jake Lynch is a correspondent for Sky News and The Independent, based in London and Sydney. He is a consultant to the POIESIS Conflict and Peace Forums and co-author of The Peace Journalism Option and What Are Journalists For?