HNN's Annalisa Burgos (right) gives the campers a studio tour.

Young journalists learn PJ; produce great newspaper, videos
It’s not often I actually feel my advanced age. But try keeping up with 13 energetic, enthusiastic teenagers, and you’ll feel the burn, too. By the time our Summer Journalism Camp for high school students ended on Thursday, I was physically and intellectually spent, a 1961 Edsel out of gas abandoned by the side of the road, a wisp of steam wafting skyward from under the hood.

It was all for a good cause. The East-West Center (EWC) hosted the high school journalists from Oahu public and private schools in Hawaii’s first summer camp for young journalists. The camp went great. The students were effusive in their praise for the four day event, noting how the camp’s impactful presentations and hands-on activities prepared them for the upcoming school year and beyond.

Among my presentations, of course, was a discussion about peace journalism. I’ve given dozens of PJ seminars and lectures to college students and professional journalists, but never to high schoolers. As I created my lecture, it quickly became apparent how much PJ can apply in scholastic settings. Here is the advice I gave the students about applying PJ at their schools:

1. Give voice to the marginalized—Who are the invisible students at your school? What can you do to help them tell their stories, and bring them into the society at large?
2. Build bridges of understanding and common ground between different groups—freshmen and upperclassmen; athletes and others; different ethnic groups
3. Seek input from all groups when discussing/debating solutions
4. Tell stories that debunk myths like the lazy teen; the phone addicted teen; the teen who is disengaged from real world issues; the ADD teen; etc.
5. Not talking sides in policy debates; instead, insure all voices are heard
6. Dig deep to report about the causes of friction, conflict, and polarization (instead of just reporting the superficial conflict—a shouting match, a disagreement at a meeting, a boycott, etc.)
7. Tell stories that humanize, never using inflammatory, stereotyping language.

The Summer Camp newspaper

The young journalists also heard great advice from Cindy Reves, newspaper advisor at McKinley High School and camp co-director; Steve Rice, multimedia trainer; and professional journalists from Civil Beat (Thomas Heaton and Blaze Lovell) and Hawaii News Now (Annalisa Burgos), which hosted us for a visit last Wednesday. A lunch performance featuring EWC/UH students was also a highlight of the event.

The camp, sponsored by EWC and the Hawaii Scholastic Journalism Association, culminated with the students producing a 7-page newspaper and three news videos to accompany the articles. (QR codes embedded in the newspaper will lead you to the videos). The paper and videos are excellent, especially given the students’ relative inexperience and the truncated production time. 

The trainers were proud of the kids, their work ethic, and their intellectual curiosity. They were a delight to work with. (Delightful, but exhausting!) I hope this is only the first summer journalism camp at the EWC. It would be great next year if the camp brings in participants from the neighbor islands, too.

I look forward to seeing the outstanding journalism produced by these young journalists this school year.

Campers enjoy an intercultural performance on Tuesday.

 

Summer Camper Ava Zoto captures images at the 
East-West Center's Japanese Garden.

Young journalists flock to East-West Center
It's a big ask to expect a high school student to take four days out of their summer to do something academic. Yet, that's exactly what 14 high school journalists are doing this week as they attend the inaugural Summer High School Journalism Camp at the East-West Center.

Thomas Heaton (l) and Blaze Lovell from Civil
Beat discuss newswriting with the campers.

The camp kicked off yesterday with expert insights on news writing and reporting from Civil Beat reporters Blaze Lovell and Thomas Heaton, who discussed and broke down a complex story they did that investigated the problems with a dam here on Oahu that almost burst in March. 

The event continued with a session on multimedia recording from Professor Emeritus Steve Rice, followed by a hands-on activity where the students descended upon the East-West Center's Japanese Garden to shoot video and still photos. 

The camp continues today through Thursday. The students will be producing a seven page newspaper detailing the camp's activities, as well as several videos about the camp's sessions, including an intercultural lunch performance from EWC graduate students today and a field trip to Hawaii News Now tomorrow.

Stay tuned for a full wrap next week.

Camper Alex Ikeda and colleagues meet, 
greet, and organize.

Questions help explore whether info is news or nonsense
I’ve had some interesting discussion lately with a family member about something he perceives as big news, but which has not been reported by any traditional media outlets, notably none of the most trusted legacy sources. I have not said that his “news” is not true, only that is not verified.

Figuring out what is and isn’t news, and what is and isn’t reliable information, is an issue not just with my adult family member, but with society (and especially young people) writ large. A study called News Literacy in America: A survey of teen information attitudes, habits and skills (2024) found that:

• 

  News Literacy Project

  Nearly half of teens surveyed thought the press does more to harm democracy than to protect it.
• Eight in 10 teens surveyed reported seeing posts on social media that spread or promote conspiracy theories, and of those, 81% said they are inclined to believe one or more of them.
• Most teens struggled to distinguish between different types of information, such as news, advertisement, opinion and entertainment. (News Literacy Project)

How do we help teens, and my relative, make sense of the infosphere? The best way to address these issues is through rigorous training in media literacy, which I’ve taught in many different forms in many different places around the world. As I teach it, rule number one is to remove partisan considerations from the discussion. In lots of places, but especially the US, partisanship chokes off discussions like overgrown weeks in a drain pipe. I also strive to choke off conversations that use condescending labels like conspiracy theorist for people who believe and spread unverified information. As a media literacy trainer, the worst thing you can tell someone is that they information that they believe is wrong, or that they are stupid for believing it. (In fact, my family member is smart and analytical). Instead, I give my trainees the tools to analyze information themselves, and come to their own conclusions as to whether the information they believe is genuine or not.

These media literacy tools are crowned by a list of questions one can employ to analyze information. These questions include:

--What person or entity created or shared the information? What is their expertise? Do they have first-hand knowledge of the news, or is their knowledge merely hearsay? (Hearsay, as we know, is inadmissible in court!)

--Why did they create it or share it?

--How do the creators benefit from disseminating the message? (The benefit could be financial, political, social, etc.)

--Who does the message harm (Political enemies? Business competitors?)

--Who is the target audience of the information?

--How does the story or information grab the audience’s attention? (If the attention grabber is emotional rather than logical, that’s a red flag for misinformation).

--What points of view are shown? Have those who dispute the information being given space to share their dissent, or is the information presented with only one side given?

--Are salient facts are omitted, or distorted?

--How does the way the information is presented (framed) change the meaning of the information? Is there context? (How do omitted or distorted facts and a one-sided presentation change how the information is perceived by the target audience?)

--Where is the hard evidence? This includes first-hand testimony (not “I’ve heard” or “I’ve been told”) and documentation, especially financial documentation.

--Is the information verified by multiple sources? Most journalism outlets use the three source rule. One source is not sufficient, especially when there is no trail of documentation to support the information this source is presenting.

--Is the information outdated? Is this an old story simply repackaged?

There are more, but these are a good start. Yes, it’s impractical to do this kind of analysis with all the information we consume. Still, being aware and skeptical, thinking about the right questions to ask, and diversifying ones’ news sources can go a long way to clear out the weeds clogging our civil discourse.

 

The latest Peace Journalist magazine has arrived!
The June edition features insightful stories from Cameroon, Greece, India, and Bangladesh; and includes insightful reports about AI and peace journalism, and peace linguistics. Enjoy!

https://online.fliphtml5.com/cvabr/Peace-Journalist-June-2026-final/#p=1

Study says indigenous voices are marginalized.
How can they be amplified instead?
One of peace journalism’s most essentially important tenets has always been giving a voice to the marginalized, to those traditionally ignored or given only lip service by the media.

A study by the Thai NGO Knowledge for Development titled “The State of Indigenous Journalists in Asia” confirms the need to be vigilant about giving a voice to the marginalized. The study looked at seven Asian nations (Cambodia, Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Nepal, and the Philippines) and found that “indigenous journalists are severely underrepresented in national media institutions across the seven countries. Indigenous journalists are often relegated to junior roles and perceived as biased. Indigenous women face triple marginalization (gender, ethnicity, and poverty) and are nearly invisible in media leadership.” It found that in addition, structural challenges like funding, inadequate training, press freedom, journalists’ safety, and digital divides often hinder the growth of indigenous media. 

When indigenous persons (IPs) are covered, these stories are “largely centered on indigenous culture, costumes, and lifestyle features. However, they did not raise real issues of human rights, land rights, indigenous rights, and other injustices impacting their lives,” according to the study.

With this in mind, I’ve worked hard to include indigenous voices in the programming for journalists that I coordinate here at the East-West Center. For example, our Jefferson Fellowship program last year included a fascinating visit to the Heʻeia National Estuarine Research Reserve and Heʻeia Fishpond on Oahu to learn about traditional aquacultural practices. Our visit included an informative, eye-opening tour given by Dr. Kawika Winter, director of the reserve. The fellows also interviewed indigenous farmers in northern Thailand who have transitioned from producing poppies to producing coffee. This fall, the Jefferson Fellows will be participating in a panel titled, “AI and Indigenous Hawaiian Society: Impacts and Opportunities.” The panel will feature Kamuela Enos, director of the Office of Indigenous Knowledge and Innovation at the University of Hawaii, talking about digital sovereignty (the right of Indigenous communities and Nations to govern, control, and manage their own digital ecosystems). 

While I believe this programming is useful, we need to do more than just amplify these voices of wisdom. The journalism establishment and larger society must empower indigenous people to shape their own narratives about themselves and their communities. This means “indigenizing media” to “create spaces where IPs have greater access and meaningful participation, their voices are heard and there is adequate coverage of their issue from their perspectives,” according to Dev Kumar Sunuwar, an indigenous media professional from Nepal. (study, pg. 19). 

The Knowledge for Development study makes several recommendations:
--Formal recognition of IPs and enforcement of UNDRIP Article 16 that deals with IP’s right to establish their own media.
--Quotas, scholarships, and support for indigenous journalists in colleges, universities and media institutions.
--Dedicated funding, safety protocols, training, and mentorship programs.
--Decolonization of journalism curricula and media institutions. Sunuwar from Nepal explains, “The concept of decolonizing media includes the notion that media outlets should have better representation of indigenous journalists, who would provide different, comprehensive, and more accurate coverage of indigenous peoples rather than merely reporting on death and destruction.”
--Support for regional indigenous media networks and collaboration.

Our media and societies are stronger when indigenous and other marginalized voices are heard and respected.

A story in the Philippines media outlet
Rappler about indigenous people and
news media. (Link)