The double standard in war journalism and its efect to the global solidarity crisis

The current war of Russia-Ukraine once again challenges us with the ethical problem of war journalism, that is prone to worsening the ongoing global solidarity crisis through ideology polarization. This is caused by the double standard that exists in war reporting where diferent wars are reported using diferent interpretations of the principles of objectivity and impartiality. This results in biased portrayal of reports such as attempts to reduce the scale of military aggression when it is done by a political ally while over blowing it when it is done by a political enemy. Such double standard and manipulation of journalism principles done deliberately to polarize the public is dangerous. An example is the popular reaction of the Indonesians on the Russian-Ukraine war. It creates a public in which many people are blinded by sectoral ego and sentimental reasoning. It makes people less critical of the party that they consider as political ally. Human rights violations done by the ally in the war is then easily dismissed. This causes cold indiference towards the suferings of the civilians in the warzone. Invasions and military aggressions are more easily justiied. World peace is becoming a lesser priority in an increasingly ideologically polarized global society.This paper aims to seek the root cause of the problem of the double standard in war reporting, especially with regards to how the journalism ethical principles should be interpreted so as to render journalism less prone to manipulation of ethical principles, hence less prone to double standard.The philosophy of Jürgen Habermas is used to analyse problems regardingthe confusion in the interpretation of the principles of journalism objectivity and impartiality. Also, Habermas’ theory of communicative action and the colonialization of the lifeworld is used to explain the impact of the double standard of war journalism towards the increase in the global solidarity crisis.