Media Rhetorics and Coverage of the Rwanda Genocide: A Selective Analysis of Two Pulitzer Prize-Winning Investigative Series by Mark Fritz and Dele Olojede

The media is undoubtedly a critical component of a healthy democracy, serving as a link between the government and the people by shaping and reshaping the public view and perspective about political, socio-economic and ethno-religious matters. To convey information to the public, the media often adopts different narrative techniques, strategies, and rhetorics, especially during warfare coverage, to douse the war’s gruesome effects on the readers. Therefore, media rhetorics is the manner or style the media adopts to narrate stories, express ideas, and advocate ideologies, values, and beliefs through various figurative expressions, rhetoric, style, imagery, and sounds. It involves using expressive, impressive, and persuasive choices of words to clarify or sometimes obscure, underscore, exaggerate, or understate in the representation of a story to the public. This study selectively analyses two Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative Series by Mark Fritz and Dele Olojede. It specifically explores the rhetorical strategies and narrative techniques adopted by these two award-winning investigative journalists in the media coverage of the genocide in Rwanda. The study shows, among other things, how their series significantly contributed to the development of investigative journalism and international conflicts and human rights reporting through rhetorics.