In the real-time environment of short news cycles and instant communications what is legitimate 'humanitarian' information to an aid worker is intelligence gathering and a military threat to a warring faction. NGOs continue to treat information handling as secondary, a preserve of often ill-prepared press officers, when it is in fact about guaranteeing the survival of an operation. On the media side, it is clear virtually none of the reporting failures identified by the Joint Steering Committee Report on Rwanda 1994 have been considered, let alone acted upon. Even experienced Africa hands who admitted a degree of guilt at their failures in Rwanda in 1994, confirmed when it comes to accuracy and balance, they by and large failed again. There is a cynical belief in conflict management circles that 'lessons learned' in one crisis become 'lessons forgotten' in the next.
Institutional memory becomes institutional amnesia.
Maybe this time it can be different. Nik Gowing is an international TV presenter and journalist who specializes in the study of the role of media in conflict management.