What does Peace have to do with Journalism? What does Journalism have to do with Peace?
Bad Doberan - as many other locations – seemed unaffected by all the turmoil around. We went there to get closer to the fence, but we never actually saw it. We did see hordes of heavily packed campers heading to the train station, which lead us to think the real action is probably happening in the camps. We headed instead for the quiet town center.
There, we met German peace journalist Leila Dregger. We talked about the events occurring in the last week, how international press is reporting them, and about the concept of Peace Journalism:
“The main focus of a peace journalist in comparison to a war journalist is that he or she would put a focus on peace processes, on peace initiatives.
There are different definitions of peace journalism. For example, Johan Galtung who invented the term of peace journalism, he said that a peace journalist is somebody who knows about conflict resolution, who knows that there are tools to resolve conflicts and that there are other tools other than violence.”
Another important image that was discussed was one of the tasks of peace journalism – to make bridges. This is when the journalists use their power and exercise their freedom of choice - on what stories to report, and how to report them - creating opportunities for society at large to consider and to value non-violent solutions to conflict.
For further practical insight into this practice, don't miss “17 Tips: What A Peace Journalist Would Try To Do”
When asked about what is currently being portrayed in the news, Leila Dregger admitted to some surprise, “more fair than I had expected, they reported also something about the aims of the demonstrations. (…) The violence, which was done by a small group, distracts people from the aims of the demonstration.” And still concerning this same violence and the way it is widely spread through mediatic coverage, Leila adds: “For a journalist, violence has a special advantage, because violence is always something big, and something noisy, and something that you can take pictures off, and something happens and something is going fast. Violence is always something going fast.” On the other hand, “Peace development is always something going slowly, it is always a process of community building, of people coming together, talking, and making peace. And this is for journalist a tough thing to report on.”
This, and other challenges journalists face, can be discussed at the dropping knowledge open dialogue platform, for instance: What is the social goal of journalism today?
Leila Dregger is a Peace Journalist and writer. She is envolved with the Forum for Peace Journalism as a part of the Peace Experiment Tamera, in Portugal.
