The Department of Peace and Conflict Studies (DPACS) operates as part of the University of Sydney, Australia, and is chaired by Associate Professor Jake Lynch. The department benefits from Lynch’s many years of experience as a professional journalist prior to taking up this academic post.
Peace Journalism has been pioneered by Jake Lynch together with Annabel McGoldrick in the fields of journalistic practice, professional training, university education and research scholarship.
Lynch and McGoldrick produced ‘A Global Standard for Reporting Conflict’, the biggest ever research study in Peace Journalism, which involved more than 500 participants in four countries. For further information about Peace Journalism, please refer to the embedded PDF.
Before working in academia, Associate Professor Jake Lynch was a Political Correspondent in London working for Sky News, and a Sydney Correspondent for the Independent newspaper. Lynch was also an on-air presenter and a news anchor for BBC World Television News.
Alongside his work as a journalist, Lynch has spent more than 20 years devising training workshops, teaching professional editors and reporters about peace journalism, as well as providing peace workers with the necessary media skills and training. Lynch’s work in this field has taken him around the world, training people in countries including Afghanistan, Nepal, Indonesia and the Philippines, with clients including the Council of Europe, the British Council, the Australian Commonwealth government, NORAD, SIDA, and DANIDA.
Jake Lynch was previously involved with the Executive Committee of the Sydney Peace Foundation, where he served for nine years, as well as spending two years as Secretary General of the International Peace Research Association. In 2017, Lynch was awarded the Luxembourg Peace Prize by the Schengen Peace Foundation in recognition of his broad and important work in the field.
Lynch has published numerous books including ‘Debates in Peace Journalism’ (2008), ‘Reporting Conflict: New Directions in Peace Journalism’ (2010) with co-author J. Galtung, and ‘A Global Standard for Reporting Conflict’ (2014). Lynch has also contributed chapters to ‘Reporting Human Rights, Conflicts and Peacebuilding: Critical and Global Perspectives’ (2019), ‘Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication: Journalism Studies’ (2018), and the foreword for ‘Peace Journalism Principles and Practices’ (2017). Furthermore, Lynch has been a regular contributor to a range of journals, newspapers and reports.