Peace Journalism During Hostile Times: Improving Media Reporting for Peace
“Journalism is not just about reporting facts. It is about ‘what’ to report and ‘how’ to report it.” – Vanessa Bassil, Director of the Media Association for Peace
“Peace journalism is the art of choosing healing over harm.” – Gloria Laker Adiiki Aciro, Founder and Director of the Peace Journalism Foundation
Speakers:
Vanessa Bassil, Founder, President & Executive Director of the Media Association for Peace (MAP)
Gloria Laker Adiiki Aciro, Founder and Director of the Peace Journalism Foundation (PJF)
In this talk, Vanessa Bassil (Lebanon) and Gloria Laker Adiiki Aciro (Uganda) will share their in-the-field experiences, ‘Peace Journalism in today’s global conflicts’ and how they are empowering others to become peace journalists.
Moderator: Lana Ulrich, JD, UN Association of Greater Philadelphia
Peace journalism uses conflict analysis and transformation to update the concepts of balance, fairness and accuracy in the traditional news reporting. The peace journalism model differentiates between what is violence-war/victory journalism and what is conflict-sensitive or peace journalism. What is called war journalism is oriented towards violence in reporting, propaganda, elite and victory. On the other side, peace journalism is conflict, truth, people and solution-oriented journalism.”
Peace Journalism is characterized by the following principles:
- Exploration of the backgrounds and contexts of conflict formation of all the sides involved in the conflict, not just two sides as the mainstream media usually portrays,
- Giving voice to the views of all rival parties from all levels
- Offering creative ideas for conflict resolution, development, peacemaking and peacekeeping
- Exposing lies, covering-up attempts and culprits on all sides, and revealing excesses committed by, and suffering inflicted on peoples of all parties
- Paying attention to peace stories and post-war developments.