Peace journalists press ahead despite numerous obstacles
Given the dumpster fire that was 2020, I wouldn’t have thought any less of my peace journalism colleagues if they had taken the year off and hunkered down. Instead, these peace journalists earned even more of my respect by pressing on with the hard work of spreading the peace journalism gospel.

As the pandemic loomed, we managed to pull off a peace journalism project in Northern Ireland in March. This project, sponsored by the US Embassy-London, was capped by an outstanding trauma reporting seminar taught by Paul Gallagher, Kathryn Johnston, Allan Leonard, Alan Meban, and Dr. Jake Lynch, whom I finally had the pleasure and honor of working with. (For details, see http://stevenyoungblood.blogspot.com/2020/03/amid-traumatic-threat-seminar-discusses.html ).

In April, the Center for Global Peace Journalism at Park University published the first of two Peace Journalist magazines this year that featured stories from talented writers from around the world. (Links--April edition and October edition)

Thanks to the talented and driven peace journalist Salem bin Sahel in Yemen, we were able to organize a seminar via Zoom for Yemeni journalists. The commitment of Yemeni journalists to peace amidst an ongoing conflict transcends was awe inspiring.  (Details: http://stevenyoungblood.blogspot.com/2020/07/war-toxic-media-underscore-need-for.html ). 

The US Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan did the heavy lifting in organizing another Zoom PJ seminar, this time for 255 journalists from around the country—the largest single peace journalism event that I know of. The logistics in getting this set up were daunting, yet the event went off smoothly. (Details: http://stevenyoungblood.blogspot.com/2020/08/zoom-seminar-reaches-energizes-255.html )

I was also privileged to receive a US State Dept. alumni/Partners for the Americas rapid response grant, and used this to deliver a media literacy program to students from Center High School and Center Middle School, Johnson County Community College, and Park University in the Kansas City area. Co-presenters Lewis Diuguid and Allan Leonard shined, arming the students with critical thinking skills. The project culminated with the production of an excellent magazine wherein students showcased their media literacy project. (For details, see previous post below).

The hard work of these fine peace journalists and peace journalism sponsoring organization under the most difficult of circumstances inspires me and fills me with hope for an even better 2021. 

Happy New Year.

Media literacy project concludes
A special project I’ve been spearheading this fall has introduced media literacy to Kansas City area students from Center Middle and Center High School students from Kansas City, and college students from Johnson County Community College (Overland Park, KS) and Park University (Parkville, MO).

The project culminated yesterday with a Media Literacy Summit on Zoom wherein students presented their research on media literacy and its importance. The presentations were excellent, and indicated an abundance of critical thinking that will be necessary if the students are to become sophisticated media consumers. 

As part of the project, the students submitted articles that were compiled into a magazine, The Misreport-A Study of Media Literacy
(https://issuu.com/peacejournalism/docs/the_misreport_digital-web) and a podcast (https://soundcloud.com/user-961623623/media-literary-podcast). Both of these products were excellent.

The project, titled, “Media Literacy for Students: Lessons from Covid-19,” included a media literacy workshop in September (Details--http://stevenyoungblood.blogspot.com/2020/09/media-literacy-seminar-launches-into.html). The project was sponsored by a Citizen Diplomacy Action Fund Rapid Response Fund/U.S. Department of State grant, given to me as an alumnus of the Fulbright program.

Dr. Jill Biden
The recent Wall Street Journal op-ed questioning Jill Biden’s use of the Dr. in front of her name has created a great deal of heat, most of it coming down on the Journal. 

Rather than pile on (which would be easy), I would simply ask these peace-journalism themed questions about the op-ed:

What was the purpose of the op-ed? Was it to shame or embarrass?
Does it deepen partisan divides?
Does it offer solutions? (Though I’m not sure what the problem is).
Would this column have been written about a man?
Does this discussion divert attention from more important issues?

On the last question, my colleague Laurie Gunderson replied on Twitter that the op-ed does not divert attention from important issues since “belittling accomplishments of women is worthy of focused discussion.” I agree.

At PeaceCon2020, my cup runneth over
Take a shot glass and pour a gallon of water into it.

This is a good summation of my last three days at the Alliance for Peacebuilding’s PeaceCon202, held this week online. The shot glass is my brain (though this is arguably a thimble), and the water the wonderful information and insights I gathered during the conference.

All the presentations were excellent, though several exemplary sessions stick out. The first, moderated by Monica Curca of Plus Peace, was about how emergent peacebuilding is become urgent, left me with more questions than answers (a good thing). My tweet (right) sums it up pretty well. The tweet doesn’t talk about privilege and colonialization, which were also discussed. One speaker talked about how as peacebuilders we must “get our shit together” before we can teach and promote peace elsewhere. I’d say in this category, I’m a work in progress, like most of us. I was also challenged by the conversation about expertise, and the traditional and mistaken notion that expertise is possible only if it comes from those privileged—white males from rich Western countries. I’m always wary of the legacy of colonialism and careful about coming across as a “white savior” or the “ultimate expert” when I teach overseas.  I instead try to position myself as facilitator, not savant, who can learn as much from my students as they learn from me. After this discussion, I will redouble my efforts in this regard.   

Another session featured Lisa Schirch from the Toda Peace Institute discussing peacebuilding in the digital sphere. She presented results from a terrific study on 25 spheres of digital peacebuilding (https://toda.org/assets/files/resources/policy-briefs/t-pb-93_lisa-schirch.pdf ). She debunked the notion that the positives and negatives of social media pretty much balance out. (See graphic, left.). I agree with her techno-pessimism assessment. Also speaking in this session was Kylie Holmes from Facebook. She said Facebook doesn’t get many reports about negative or misleading posts from “places we have the biggest concerns,” and that without these “signals from the community,” the company is not able to be proactive in targeting problematic content. I’m reflexively skeptical of anything Facebook says or does, given their track record, and am not optimistic that change in this area will come from content platforms. Instead, I think the real silver bullet to counter online hate and misinformation is media literacy training.

The final session that really caught my eye was about what comes next in peacebuilding in the U.S. Joseph Bubman, from an organization called Urban Rural Action (https://www.uraction.org/), spoke about the divides in our society, and how they are fueled by incivility, social media, partisan media, a political system that rewards extremism, and isolation from those who disagree with us.  He said  we must work across the divide while standing  up to oppression to advance positive peace. “You can solve problems while you build relationships—they are mutually reinforcing,” he said.

Julia Roag, the president and CEO of Partners Global (https://www.partnersglobal.org/) followed up by asking, “How do you combat a war of ideas? Is it with facts?”  Answering her question, she stated that facts should be accompanied with a narrative frame (and a solution) that helps to explain and contextualize the facts for any given audience. 

Roag noted that the partnerships that we form also depend on framing, and thus, we must deeply understand how narratives change people’s understanding. She asked, “What is our peacebuilding narrative, and what are people already thinking about peace and peacebuilding?” This is a question I need to start asking about my peace journalism projects—What are people already thinking about the news media, and its role in creating a climate where non-violent responses to conflict are valued?

For more on framing, see https://www.frameworksinstitute.org/article/five-framing-tips-framing-for-social-change/.

Peace journalism fits nicely with Roag’s notions of framing and narratives, since PJ seeks to correct misleading (and sometimes stereotyping) narratives and replace them with counternarratives that provide a different framing, one that humanizes “them,” gives voice to the voiceless and peacebuilders, and leads societal discussions about solutions while rejecting inflammatory, divisive language.

Thanks, Alliance for Peacebuilding, for giving me so to think about. Next year, I plan to bring a bucket.

As peace journalists, how do we reach election-deniers?
Many conservative media outlets continue to fuel the lie that Biden’s win is illegitimate, even though the facts to the contrary are clear. 

Biden’s victory has been certified by every competitive state, while more than 30 Trump campaign legal challenges have been thrown out of court, often by conservative judges. Despite protestations to the contrary, not a shred of proof has been introduced in court that would indicate any fraud, let alone fraud on a scale that would change the outcome of the election in any state or overall.

The news media have repeated these facts ad nauseam and challenged the Trump campaign’s lies about voter fraud. While admirable, this reporting and commentary is clearly not reaching anyone who really needs to hear it. According to the New York Times, “Since the election, surveys have consistently found that about 70 percent to 80 percent of Republicans don’t buy the results. They don’t agree that Joe Biden won fair and square. They say the election was rigged. And they say enough fraud occurred to tip the outcome.” Also, an alarming 49 percent said "they expected Mr. Trump to be inaugurated on Jan. 20.” (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/30/upshot/republican-voters-election-doubts.html)

Obviously, these election-deniers have their heads buried in the Fox, Newsmax, and OANN sand. 

As peace journalists, then, how do we reach our fellow citizens?

The fix won’t happen quickly, but needs to start immediately. It begins with re-imagining our politically polarized media which has so distorted information that facts, opinions, and claims have become indistinguishable. One key tenet of peace journalism is to reject ‘us vs. them’ narratives, the kind that feed polarizing media. Instead, a peace journalist would strive to serve audiences on all sides politically, and seek common ground. A good place to start would be to attempt to forge some agreed-upon facts like those mentioned previously.

Peace journalists would also turn down the rhetorical heat by rejecting inflammatory language directed at the other side. President-elect Biden has been a good role model in this regard.

Another way to reach election-deniers is with media literacy education. Media lit education would empower audiences to check facts for themselves, to critically analyze content from all media sources for bias and misinformation, and to break out of their ‘media bubbles’ and consume news from a diversity of sources across the political spectrum. Better journalism, peace journalism, could be employed to help audiences distinguish between claims and facts, to provide basic civics education that so many lack, and to give audiences the tools so that they can de-bunk conspiracy theories themselves. (To learn more, see  the National Association for Media Literacy Education at  https://namle.net/ .)

All the responsible, productive, bridge-building peace journalism in the world won’t make much of a difference if it echoes inside only one media bubble or if its messages get lost in a partisan maelstrom.

It’s time to dismantle our poisonous partisan media structure and empower audiences to become better, smarter news media consumers. 

PJ needed to set the tone for peace in Ethiopia
It is with great alarm that I view the current violent conflict in Ethiopia, where I spent the spring, 2018 semester as a State Department Senior Subject Specialist. I was based at the University of Gondar, near the Tigray region from where the conflict originates, but traveled throughout the country, including to Mekelle (also spelled Mek'ele), the capital of the Tigray region. 

As a peace journalist, I am as always concerned with the news media and their coverage of the conflict. Are they accurately reflecting the situation in Ethiopia? Are they fanning the flames of conflict, or instead are they practicing peace journalism?

I called upon two of my Ethiopian colleagues to help me make sense of the media coverage. I’ve decided not to use their names, out of respect for their privacy.

First, regarding international coverage, both of my colleagues are critical of the news media. My colleague whom I’ll call Abel said, “some of the international reporting has been surprisingly incomplete and partisan. The national defense forces were engaged in respecting rule of law in the defiant Tigray Liberation Front Forces. While this was the fact many news organizations such as Al Jazeera, Foreign Policy Magazine, the BBC and The Guardian represented the event as a brink of civil war. This is totally out of context and incomplete.”

He continued, “The other dishonest news come from Reuters news agency. While the Tigrayan Liberation forces have killed more than 500 ethnic Amhara civilians in border town of May Khadra, the reporter reported as (though) they were ethnic Tigrayans and were killed the national defense force. This is totally a fake information which is aimed at disinforming the international community.”

My second colleague whom I’m calling Kaleb agreed. He said, “Most of international news are biased... This is not civil war. It is a military operation…I also believe that Tigrayan brothers and sisters are ill informed and highly influenced by TPLF’s (the ruling party in Tigray) propaganda and disinformation. TPLF has created a false narrative in the country that Amhara (the region bordering Tigray, which includes Gondar) is chauvinist.”

Media coverage by Ethiopian outlets is also a concern. At the local level during any conflict, peace journalism asks whether local media reports are flag waving, jingoistic propaganda (traditional war reporting), or whether they are more balanced and give local residents a chance to consider non-violent responses to conflict.

A quick perusal of several Ethiopian news sources reveals the prevalence of traditional war reporting. (Keep in mind that there are only a few sources in English, so this analysis is severely limited.) The Ethiopia News Agency (https://www.ena.et/en/), for example, uncritically parrots government information in stories titled “Inhabitants of Addis Ababa Express Support for National Defense Force,” “Ethiopians Honor Defense Force,” and “Reports, Footages Claiming Airstrike on City of Mekelle (in Tigray region) False.” Ethiopia Zare (https://ethiopiazare.com/) does the same in stories like “The Ethiopian government asked the international community to condemn TPLF.” One needn’t look beyond the lead of this story to divine its approach: “The heinous and reprehensible massacre committed against innocent civilians in Mykadra by TPLF is clearly a grave violation of the most basic norms of international law.”

The same jingoism can be found in at least one Tigrayan media outlet, Tigray Online (http://www.tigraionline.com/) in stories titled “Barbaric-Genocidal Ethnic Cleansing, Extreme Savagery, in Ethiopia,” “(Ethiopian leaders) Abiy Ahmed and Esayas Afewerki Planned and Started a Joint War against the Innocent People of Tigrai,” and “Ethiopians fleeing to Sudan describe air strikes, machete killings in Tigray.” This last story includes the quote, “They killed anyone who said they were Tigrayan. They stole our money, our cattle, and our crops from our homes and we ran with just the clothing on our backs.”

Instead of this traditional reporting, peace journalists would critically analyze propaganda, and instead seek to balance stories with reports from all sides. PJ stories would reject inflammatory language (“barbaric,” “innocent people,” “savagery,” “machete killings”) and instead use more straightforward, less anger-inducing verbiage. PJ would give a voice to everyday people impacted by the conflict, without exploiting them for partisan purposes. Peace journalists would also examine the source of the conflict, and lead societal discussions about potential solutions.

Peace journalism alone won’t end the violence in Ethiopia, but can help erect a foundation upon which peace can someday be built.

Students:Whether you candidate won or lost,
use this election as peacebuilding opportunity
Note: I plan to email this to all of my students as soon as we have a presidential winner.

Nov. 4, 2020

Dear Peace Studies and Peace Journalism students:

Despite the divisions and angst it has generated, the presidential election nonetheless offers us the opportunity as peacebuilders to put our craft into practice. This is true regardless of which candidate you supported.

If you supported the winner, congratulations. As a peacebuilder, I would hope that you would accept the results graciously and with humility, and not celebrate by using inflammatory language that might deepen partisan, racial, and cultural divides. Further, as a supporter of the winner, I believe it is your responsibility to reach out to those who supported the other candidate to build bridges, in the parlance of peace studies and peace journalism. During these discussions, begin with listening, and with showing empathy for the emotional impact from the election results. Let them know that your vote was cast with the best intentions, for the leader and policies you feel will be most beneficial for the country, and was not a ballot cast against the supporters on the losing side.

This difficult discussion is not optional. The father of peace studies, Dr. Johan Galtung, wrote this week on Twitter that failure to conduct these demanding conversations will lead almost inevitably to violent conflict. As a “winner,” you are uniquely positioned to demonstrate your humility by initiating these discussions.

If you supported the losing candidate, I’m sorry. Keep in mind that during your life, you will assuredly win and lose some electorally. Politics are cyclical.

Even though the results seem very personal, I believe that they are not. Sure, there are obnoxious forces on both sides who do vote with malice in their heart—racists, xenophobes, homophobes, haters of Christians and rural Americans, elitists, etc. But I believe that 99% of us vote with the best intentions, not intending to personally harm anyone. Some of these good intentions arise out of ignorance and social and geographical isolation, and offer an opportunity to you as a peacemaker to educate those around you about our diverse society. This is a chance for you to build bridges as well. Begin by listening carefully, and don’t be argumentative or pedantic.

Regardless of how your candidate performed, you can harness your anger and disappointment, or energy and enthusiasm, to build peace. Begin by looking around to find the impediments to positive peace in our society. Positive peace, as theorized by Dr. Galtung, is the attitudes, institutions, and structures that create and sustain peaceful societies. Positive peace is sustainable and built upon a foundation of justice and opportunity for everyone. Make it your mission to seek out and combat impediments to positive peace, be they structural (laws, policies, procedures) or cultural (ideology, language, traditional attitudes). Your peace activism might, for example, battle sexism or racism, or seek to expand and protect religious and free speech rights. You could also monitor and call out news media that distort and fuel the divides in our society.

In short, what will you do as a peacebuilder to plant the seeds for a sustainable, lasting peace?

We can do better—better at communicating with and respecting one another, and better at fostering positive peace. We’ll never get rid of partisanship, but perhaps we as peacebuilders can help build a society where the nastiness and bitterness accompanying our elections becomes a relic of the past.

Peace,

Professor Youngblood

Indian, Pakistani journalists talk objectivity, challenging officials
There were several loose ends and leftover questions from last week’s peace journalism seminars for 80 engaged Indian and Pakistani journalists. (See previous post, below).

Q: One journalist said his family was murdered in Kashmir, and noted that it would be hard to bury his own emotions were he to report on this incident. Can this be reported objectively?

A: No one would expect objectivity under these circumstances. Objectivity is a goal that is worth striving for, though 100% objectivity isn’t realistically attainable. We all have biases. The best we can do as journalists is to be aware of our biases, and try to mitigate them. In this instance, I would ask to be excused from reporting about Kashmir, or for that matter, anything like this that is deeply personal. Any good editor would understand. If there was no choice but for me to report something that personally involved me (or in which I had a conflict of interest), then I would at least make my editor aware of the situation, and my biases, so that she could edit my story accordingly so as to remove the bias.

Q: In many countries, journalists fear the consequences of challenging official government narratives and officials. This wariness often leads to self-censorship. Given this understandable fear, how can we implement some of the changes that peace journalism recommends?

A: This is a problem in many places around the world, at least the ones I’ve worked in. The answer from my colleague Stephen Franklin is perfect. He says the key is “taking small steps to see how far you can go, and slowly test the pushback from editors, politicians, and government officials. That's how I've seen journalists in similar places try to work things out - although I've also seen them lose their jobs and their publications shut down.”

These small steps, in my experience, are almost always possible, even in state owned or controlled media outlets. For example, I visited a state TV and radio outlet in Hawassa, Ethiopia in 2018, and was pleased to discover that peace journalism was possible even there. I wrote, “It’s clear at least some of the (state TV and radio) journalists feel frustrated and stifled, though it also evident from the discussion that they believe that at least some elements of PJ can be implemented at the state media in Hawassa. These PJ elements include giving a voice of the voiceless; responsible refugee and IDP reporting; media as reconciliation tool; and avoiding inflammatory reporting.” (http://stevenyoungblood.blogspot.com/2018/03/is-pj-possible-on-state-run-radio-and_27.html)

I’ve seen the “small steps” method work in places as diverse as Uganda (where politicians own many media outlets) and Yemen (with strict government censorship and licensing). The key, as articulated by my Pakistani and Indian colleagues last week, is to begin by reporting stories about what governments might see as non-controversial topics like climate, water, trade, agriculture, and Covid-19.

Pakistani, Indian journalists gather on Zoom
Among peace journalism’s many powers is an ability to help journalists see their key role as bridge builders, cross-cultural agents who can help bring conflicting parties closer to reconciliation.

This bridge building, cross border role was emphasized last week as I “met” 80 Indian and Pakistani journalists on Zoom. The seminars last Tuesday through Friday were organized by the East-West Center, based in Hawaii.

My 90 minute seminars, given for 20 journalists at a time (10 from each country), began with a discussion of how “the other” is portrayed in media. The journalists then explored the basics of peace journalism, especially how language and violent, sensational framing can exacerbate conflicts. The journalists analyzed stories from their both countries for peace journalism content (or lack thereof).

The sessions concluded with the journalists breaking into groups and creating their own set of guidelines for more responsibly reporting cross border issues. These ideas on how to implement peace journalism included:

--Beginning with small steps and reporting “softer,” non-controversial stories (science, agriculture, health, etc.). These stories might include climate, water, and trade, for example. These small steps could “test the system,” so that journalists could know how far they can push the boundaries of what authorities would allow.

--Getting sober analysis from all sides during TV forums, not just “jingo-ists.” 

--Being careful to avoid demonizing and inflammatory language, including words like “enemy” and “terrorist.” 

--Avoiding blaming “them” for environmental problems.

--Using cross-border teams to fact check and verify info from the other side.

--Reporting stories that highlight commonalities—environmental crises, Covid-19 challenges, etc.

-- Interviewing everyday people, and not just officials—giving a voice to the voiceless, in the parlance of peace journalism.

--Producing counternarrative stories about Kashmir that debunk the media-perpetuated myth that the region is nothing but a war zone.

--Turning down the temperature, a difficult task given the structural challenges in India and Pakistan that favor TV shows that both toe the government line and are sensational, often featuring angry shouting matches. “We need a voice of reason,” one reporter noted. 

My four peace journalism seminars were only the beginning of a larger project for these Indian and Pakistani journalists titled, “Reporting on cross border issues of mutual concern.” This week, they will be trained on multimedia journalism, and later, split into groups to study reporting in four content areas—agriculture, environment, health, and economy. Each of these sessions is being taught by Univ. of Missouri professors. Then after these virtual sessions this month and next, the plan is to continue the project face-to-face by bringing the journalists and trainers to Kathmandu, Nepal sometime in 2021, depending on the pandemic. The idea is to get reporters from each country to team up on mutually compelling stories in the four content areas.  (For more, see https://www.eastwestcenter.org/professional-development/seminars-journalism-programs/reporting-cross-border-issues-mutual-concern )

The project is funded by the U.S. Dept. of State and implemented by the East-West Center, which “promotes better relations and understanding among the people and nations of the United States, Asia, and the Pacific through cooperative study, research, and dialogue,” according to its website. The Center is an independent, public, nonprofit organization with funding from the U.S. government, and additional support provided by private agencies, individuals, foundations, corporations, and governments in the region.

Study: Media don't celebrate Trump's Covid diagnosis
The media’s coverage of Donald Trump’s bout with Covid-19 has been largely free of “just desserts” narratives, while attacks against him for being irresponsible have grown as the president has recovered, according to a new study.

A NexisUni database search of news on Oct. 3-4, the two days following Trump’s positive test announcement, maxed out at 10,000+ hits for “Trump and Covid.” (Maxed out means there were at least 10,000 stories, though the database shows only the first 10,000). Of these, only a small number of stories contained “just desserts” keywords like “karma” (114), “deserved” (370), “inevitable” (265), and “ironic” (65). There were even 126 hits for “didn’t deserve.” If fact, the phrase “just desserts” was found only twice in this search.

Using the total of 10,000 news stories on Trump and Covid on these two days, even the most frequently appearing “just desserts” keyword, “deserved,” appeared in just 3.7% of the stories. Clearly, the media steered clear of most attacks that would imply that Trump got what he deserved, as well as language that might be seen as celebrating Trump’s infection. To do otherwise would have given right-wing media the red meat they crave to feed their narrative about the liberal media hating Trump.

According to a second NexisUni search, the “just desserts” narrative did not gain any additional traction the following two days. On Oct. 5 (the day Trump returned to the White House from the hospital) and Oct. 6, the keywords of “karma” and “deserved” showed slight increases (from 114 to 137 and from 114 to 137 respectively) while the term “inevitable” (265 to 199) had a decreased number of hits. The keyword “ironic” stayed about the same (65 to 68).

Statistically, the press took it easy on Trump on Oct. 3-4 when it came to his perceived lack of personal responsibility, and what some see as his cavalier attitude when it comes to exposing others to his infection. On these two full days, the search of 10,000+ Trump and Covid news stories showed a modest number of hits for the keywords “reckless” (267) and “irresponsible” (280—just 2.8% of the 10,000 stories).

However, on Oct. 5-6, the press attacks on Trump’s personal responsibility escalated. A NexisUni search found 10,000+ Trump and Covid stories on these dates. Of these, 858 used the term “reckless,” while another 579 used the word “irresponsible.” Both totals were more than double the preceding two days, perhaps indicating that the press felt increasingly comfortable justifiably attacking Trump as he recovered and his prognosis improved.

One interesting aside: Whether a deliberate poke in the eye or not, the press liberally used a term Trump hates, “obese.” From Oct. 3-6, “obese” appeared in 1296 of 10,000 Trump and Covid stories—about 13%.

In summary, despite what one might hear from conservative outlets, there was almost no celebration in the news media when Trump contracted the virus. Instead, between Oct. 3-6, in 10,000+ articles, the media offered “prayers” (1364 hits) and hopes for a “speedy recovery” (1602). Once Trump was back in the White House, attacks against his irresponsible behavior did escalate, justifiably so, since his behavior calls into question his judgment and commitment to protecting others.

The new Peace Journalism magazine has arrived!
The October, 2020 edition of the Peace Journalist magazine is out! It features reports on Zoom conferences and peace journalism projects from Brazil, Israel, Yemen, Sudan, and elsewhere.

The magazine is posted on Issuu at:
 https://issuu.com/peacejournalism/docs/peace_journalist_oct_2020-web .

A downloadable/viewable .pdf file of the magazine is at: 
https://www.park.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Peace-Journalist-Oct-2020-web.pdf

The Peace Journalist is a semi annual publication featuring news and information by, for, and about peace journalism practitioners, academics, and students. Our next edition is April, 2021. See page 2 of the magazine for submission details. We welcome and encourage submissions from everyone.

Enjoy!

Media literacy seminar launches into sea of necessity
As American winds down the road toward the election, it's become abundantly clear, if it wasn't already, that social and traditional media are being weaponized by political operatives and malevolent foreign actors against the American people.

How can we fight back? I think one of the best ways is through media literacy. 

Media literacy is the thrust behind a project I'm spearheading this fall. Sponsored by a Citizen Diplomacy Action Fund Rapid Response award from the U.S. Department of State, the project is titled, “Media Literacy for Students: Lessons from Covid-19.”

It kicked off yesterday with a Zoom conference for Center Middle and Center High School students from Kansas City, and college students from Johnson County Community College (Overland Park, KS) and Park University (Parkville, MO).

Co-presenters Lewis Diuguid (journalist/multicultural education trainer), Allan Leonard (Fact Check Northern Ireland), and I presented the attendees with an introduction to mis, dis, and mal-information and an overview of mis/disinformation in media reports about Covid-19 and the recent civil rights protests. We armed the students with information about how to sniff out fake news (e.g. consider the source, the target audience, double-check info, examine the writer’s motivations, etc.); how to conduct their own fact checking; and how to implement their own basic content analysis study to detect media biases. The students did an excellent job coming up with coding lists designed to discern differences, for example, in reports about hydroxycholroquine (a Covid “cure” promoted by Donald Trump) on Fox News vs. CNN.

The project will continue this fall as students produce a media-literacy themed magazine and podcast. Stay tuned for details.

How People Are Impacted by Violent Media

How People Are Impacted by Violent Media
I was honored to speak at the +Peace “Peacebuilding Action Week” on Monday, 14 Sept. The +Peace team assigned me an interesting topic: How People are Impacted by Violent News.” 

I begin with a quick overview of the ubiquitiousness of violence in news media, which has been well documented by numerous researchers. I put my own spin on the topic, and added a new source of violence (and its accompanying fear) in the media: campaign commercials, and especially those from the Trump campaign. I showed one commercial featuring an older women menaced by a burglar intended to deliver an “unsafe in Biden’s America” message. 

The meat of my presentation, following a break-out discussion asking participants to analyze media images, was on peace journalism, and how it can offer an antidote to the traditional violent narratives that I discussed earlier in my presentation. Specifically as it relates to violence, I offered nine suggestions for applying PJ to reducing violence and sensationalism: 

• Provide context; report trends
• Make crime coverage less episodic 

• Don’t sensationalize 

• Bloody images necessary? 

• Don’t glorify the crime 

• Use neutral language, not: slaughter, bloody, massacre, martyr 

• Call out fear-mongering politicians
• No notoriety for shooters/manifestos 

• Report about solutions 

+Peace’s Peacebuilding Action Week continues Wednesday-Friday this week. “Peace in our homes and communities” is the theme today, followed by “Peace in our Cities Thursday,” and “Peace in our World” Friday. You can register and find out more at https://pluspeace.org/peacebuilding-action-week-2020 . 

 This was my first and, I hope, not my last engagement with +Peace, which “is activating a global movement of people that are invested in building a culture of peace - grounded in our peacebuilding realities & the hope of our collective futures,” according to its website.

Events spotlight media-social justice, safely covering protests
While the world may have almost come to a stop, peace journalism hasn’t, as evidenced by the two events I spoke at this week. 

The first, on Wednesday, was a Zoom presentation to kick off the annual Greater Kansas City Peacebuilding Conference. I discussed “Media Narratives: Impeding Social Justice.” I led off with a discussion about the divergent partisan narratives of the Black Lives Matter protests (see chart), and went on to explain how this coverage has impeded social justice by inaccurately tarring protesters with a “violent” label and “stigmatizing protesters as deviant and depicting protests as violent.”  Also, such coverage is episodic, and doesn’t generate “substantive information about the event’s background or the grievances or agendas of the movement behind the protest.” (See-- https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1940161219853517 .) 

Several of the audience questions dealt with how to better inform oneself. This led me, inevitably, into endorsing media literacy. I urged the audience to break out of their ideological news bubbles, and to seek out news that contradicts their worldview. In a nutshell, liberals should watch Hannity and read the Wall St. Journal, and conservatives should read the Washington Post and watch Rachel Maddow. 

The next event in the Greater Kansas City Peacebuilding Conference is a discussion by journalist/activist Lewis Diuguid titled, “Disinformation, Civil Rights Protests, and Social Justice” at 1pm CST on September 21, the international day of peace. To register or read more about the conference, see https://www.jccc.edu/conferences/peacebuilding/ . 

KC BLM protests, by Carlos Moreno-KCUR

My second event on Thursday, sponsored by the International Relations Council, was a Zoom forum on the safety of journalists. I began by giving a brief overview of challenges to reporters posed by both Covid 19 and covering the Black Lives Matter protests. Then, I was joined by KCUR multimedia journalists Carlos Moreno, who detailed his experiences covering the BLM protests in Kansas City.  I talked about threats to press freedom around the world related to Covid, then presented about the arrests and harassment journalists have faced covering the BLM protests. Moreno shared his photos of the protests taken in Kansas City, along with his general impression about his safety. He said that both protesters and police treated him well, and that with the exception of one small incident, he never felt threatened.

We also discussed the Committee to Protect Journalists tips on safely covering protests that include wearing protective gear and utilizing situational awareness. 

 

 

For responsible election coverage, local news can lead the way
As the smoke clears from the political conventions and the nation lurches toward Nov. 3, all eyes will be on the media and the way it covers the race for the White House and congress.

Some of those eyes will be turned to bitterly partisan media that plays to its base. If you’re enamored with Sean Hannity on Fox or Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, the odds that you’re still persuadable in terms of your presidential choice are extremely low.  

That said, there is still an opportunity for media in the middle of the political spectrum (ABC, CBS, NPR) and especially local media to report the election in a responsible, bipartisan way that informs and empowers viewers rather than polarizing and angering them.

Local media are especially well-positioned to inform skeptical voters. According to a 2019 Gallup poll, 45% of Americans trust reporting by local news organizations “a great deal” or “quite a lot,” compared with 31% for national news organizations. In fact, 54% of respondents said local media did an excellent or good job of “making sure people in your local area have the knowledge they need to be informed about public affairs.” 

Local media, then, can leverage this trust to produce electoral reporting that presents reports that tell audiences what to think about, rather than what to think, in a non-partisan, balanced, and objective way. In a perusal of KC television news websites on Aug, 31, there are locally produced news stories that fit this criteria, like several from Fox 4 KC (“Two Kansas doctors but differing Covid 19 takes in Senate race”; 2020 Voter guide focuses on issues of importance for Kansas kids”; “National get out the vote campaigns cause confusion locally”). On KCTV’s website, there are a few Covid stories, but no stories directly related to the election. (However, there is lots of crime coverage). On KSHB’s site, there is an Election 2020 navigation bar at the top. On the elections page, there is a handy guide that categorized election news by subject (economy, race relations, coronavirus, etc.) There are also local stories on the Kansas senate race, and voter confusion in Johnson County. On the KMBC website, under local news, there were a few Covid stories, but no election-related news.

Exemplary, responsible local broadcast coverage can be found on KCUR 90.3fm and at KCUR.org. Recent “Up to Date” talk show segments have included reports on voting with the Missouri secretary of state, interviews with area RNC and DNC delegates, and ongoing coverage of Black Lives Matter and its impact on local and national politics. Under the local news tab on KCUR.org, there is an Election 2020 header that has useful information on how to vote absentee or in advance, and a “meet the candidates” story on those running for a Missouri state senate seat.

While there is a lot of good information out there, both local and national media can better serve the public by downplaying the ubiquitous and ultimately unproductive flood of stories about which candidate is ahead in the latest poll. A study of the 2016 presidential campaign by the Harvard Shorenstein Center found that, in five major newspapers, “almost half of each candidate’s coverage focused on the horse race (43% for Hillary Clinton and 42% for Donald Trump), much more than was devoted to their policy stands (9% for Clinton and 12% for Trump).” 

Horse race coverage, according to Harvard University researcher and professor Dr. Thomas Patterson, is linked to an uninformed electorate as well as distrust in politicians and media outlets. In addition, such coverage shortchanges female candidates who rely on policy positions to build credibility, and third party candidates who aren’t seen as legitimate. (Link)

Finally, recognizing the increasing political polarization, the responsible journalist would give a voice to the politically voiceless—in this case, the moderates and compromisers, instead of exclusively spotlighting the extreme, divisive voices on either end of the political spectrum.

So while we can’t expect much to change on cable TV, local media particularly can play an important role in producing a more thoughtful, and less emotional and reflexively partisan, electorate.

Zoom seminar reaches, energizes 255 Sudanese journalists
I’ve given perhaps a hundred peace journalism seminars and workshops in 27 countries around the world. The seminar I presented for Sudanese journalists last week, sponsored by the U.S. Embassy and U.S. State Dept., was perhaps the most interesting, and definitely the most unique.

First, the three day workshop was presented entirely via Zoom. Secondly, the seminar set a record for the largest single peace journalism seminar with 255 participants from 15 of the 18 regions of Sudan. The participant-journalists were mostly gathered at universities. And third, despite the size and virtual nature of the seminar, the participants were unusually eager to share their viewpoints and experiences.

The first day of the seminar featured an introduction to peace journalism. I led a discussion about what responsible journalism should do, and should look like, in Sudan. Several participants discussed the importance of freedom of the press as a prerequisite to improving journalism, and hoped that the 2019 revolution will pave the way for expanded press freedoms. There is still substantial improvement needed in this area, however. Human Rights Watch and others have reported on recent efforts by the army to threaten and muzzle critical journalists using the same anti-freedom laws wielded by the previous autocratic Sudanese regime. 

Several other journalists mentioned the important role journalism should play in “celebrating diversity” and rejecting traditional “us vs. them” narratives, one of the cornerstones of peace journalism.  Others still emphasized the importance of being unbiased, and that this is especially important in reporting about other ethnic groups.

The most interesting question of the day was whether it is okay for journalists to exaggerate a story if this exaggeration would create greater awareness of a vitally important issue. My response invoked “the boy who cried wolf.” What happens, I asked, when there is a story of great importance? Will the public think we’re exaggerating it? Every time we exaggerate and sensationalize, we lose our credibility, I noted.

On day two, we discussed social media and its central role in the revolution. One participant said that using social media, “People promoting the revolution were guiding the narrative…They were aware of what was happening in real spaces. They conveyed the information. Traditional journalism was limited by the security apparatus and couldn’t participate as fully as they would have liked.”

We also discussed the central role of media in reconciliation processes. Journalists from Gedarif University said in the chat room, “The media has a vanguard role in resolving conflicts and ethnic and racial differences by proposing continuous awareness programs to leave differences and look to the future of the specific region to achieve security and peace through coexistence and acceptance of the other, as well as producing interactive programs for the local community on conflicts and disagreements that divide society.”

There were also many interesting interactions during the third and final day of the seminar.

We discussed coverage of the conflict in Darfur. One participant said that the coverage was completely biased, and hindered by multiple obstacles. “Journalists tried to highlight events, but were coerced (by authorities) to highlight alternative narratives and forced to show a state narrative,” she said.

“We couldn’t maintain neutrality,” said another journalist. There were ethnic cleavages, but journalists were “not able to cover them adequately.”

In terms of reporting about the civic unrest that led to the overthrow of the Bashir regime in 2019, journalists noted that “official media was very limited and diminished in its capacity…to convey demands of the people.” Others agreed, noting that the State acted “with a fist of iron.” Those who spoke agreed that social media was best able to present the news and the “peaceful nature of the revolution.”

The seminar was made possible by the civilian-led transitional government (CLTG) and the United States Embassy, which share a “ number one priority to establish peace” in Sudan, according to Public Affairs Officer Keith Hughes. Since Covid -19 made my travel impossible, the decision was made to hold the seminars virtually. Further, holding the seminar required the State Dept. and CLTG to convince Zoom executives to life the block on Sudanese IP addresses using Zoom.

It is my plan to make a face to face visit to Sudan to continue our discussions about peace journalism sometime in 2021—inshallah, as they say in Arabic.

 Sudan peace journalism seminar

The world's largest PJ seminar--255 participants--is being held on Zoom this week (Monday, Thursday, Friday). So far, so great--a very active, vibrant group; no technical glitches; reasonably coherent presentations (by me).

Stay tuned for details--I'll blog about this on Monday.

Call for Papers-The Peace Journalist

I hope this message finds you and your loved ones safe and healthy.

The Peace Journalist magazine is seeking submissions for our October, 2020 edition. 

The Peace Journalist is a semi-annual publication (print and .pdf) of the Center for Global Peace Journalism at Park University in Parkville, Missouri. The Peace Journalist is dedicated to disseminating news and information for and about teachers, students, and practitioners of peace and conflict sensitive journalism.

Submissions are welcome from all. We seek submissions of 500-1500 words about peace media, peace and conflict sensitive journalism projects, and research into peace journalism and media and conflict.

Please submit your article via email to steve.youngblood@park.edu. 

Your article must have a strong media/peace, media/peacebuilding, and/or conflict sensitive journalism angle. The Peace Journalist does not run general articles about peace initiatives or projects.

The submission deadline is Sept. 3. However, it’s advisable to submit your article early, since space is always an issue.

To see copies of the most recent Peace Journalist, and to peruse past issues, go to:

https://www.park.edu/academics/explore-majors-programs/peace-studies-minor/center-global-peace-journalism-2/peace-journalist/

Thank you in advance for your interest in the Peace Journalist.

Steven Youngblood
Editor, The Peace Journalist

Director, Center for Global Peace Journalism

Park University

Parkville, MO USA

www.park.edu/peacecenter

Twitter: @PeaceJourn

War, toxic media culture underscore need for peace journalism in Yemen
Imagine a highly polarized media environment where media focus exclusively on the alleged misdeeds and even atrocities committed by the other side. Media stoke hatred by dehumanizing the other side. In this environment, there is no middle ground, only biased reporting and propaganda, leaving the public with a distorted picture of reality.

No, this is not the United States.

This is the media environment in Yemen, as described in an article by The Atlantic Council. Yemen is saddled not only with this toxic media culture, but with an especially brutal war that has, according to Human Rights Watch, sparked the “world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with 14 million people at risk of starvation and repeated outbreaks of deadly diseases like cholera.” (Human Rights Watch)

Against this backdrop, I conducted a peace journalism seminar last Thursday and Friday for 13 journalists from Mukalla in Southern Yemen, an area which has not been spared the ravages of war. According to one of the seminar’s organizers, in Mukalla,  “a half million people live in extreme poverty, and in the city streets beggars are searching for food in garbage, while sewage has floated in open drains, causing environmental pollution and spreading many diseases.”

In a normal year, due to the ongoing war, the seminar would have been conducted in person in a neighboring country like Oman or UAE. But we know 2020 is anything but normal, and thus, the seminar was held via Zoom.

I presented information about the fundamentals of peace journalism. The principles of giving voice to the voiceless and rejecting ‘us vs. them’ narratives were especially salient for the participants. We discussed if peace journalism is widely practiced in Yemen. According to the journalist participants, it is not. We also reviewed the Atlantic Council’s assessment of Yemeni media, and they agreed with the journalist who told the Atlantic Council that “polarization in Yemeni media has never been this high. The problem is that there is no room for a middle ground. On one hand, Houthis (one of the warring parties) allow press only if it is biased in favor of them, as does the Yemeni exiled-government. All that you have in Yemen now is propaganda and each side can support you, only if you abide by their propaganda.”

Asked to present tips on how Yemeni media could practice peace journalism, the participants shared ideas like listening to all parties; double checking sources; including discussions of peace; interviewing “everyone”; concentrating on truth and not rumors; and developing more training in peace journalism techniques. The participants also agreed that they have a vital role to play when it comes to curating social media for their audiences--to “check sources, look for the truth, and listen to all parties,” in the words of one participant.

The seminar closed with break-out session conversations about Peace Radio, a new community radio station dedicated to peace and peace programming that will begin broadcasting later this year in Southern Yemen. The journalists were excited about the potential of Peace Radio, believing it will help in changing perceptions about the conflict. The participants said Peace Radio will  be an especially useful platform for giving voice to all parties in the conflict, and for giving a voice to the voiceless, especially women.

I closed the seminar by pledging my support and advice as Peace Radio moves forward. I’m hopeful that when the fog of Covid-19 finally lifts, I’ll get a chance to meet my Yemeni colleagues in person.

 

Is peace journalism possible during a war?
Is peace journalism possible in the middle of a war?

This will be the first of many questions I’ll be asking reporters from Mukalla, Yemen tomorrow and Friday during our Introduction to Peace Journalism seminar, to be presented on Zoom. I’ve seen peace journalism succeed in many post conflict situations, but am curious to hear the journalists’ viewpoint on the role of PJ in building peace during an ongoing war.

For the uninitiated, there has been a brutal war raging in Yemen for the last five years. (See this BBC primer for details). The war has led to arguably the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. According to Human Rights Watch, “The UN considers Yemen to be the world's largest humanitarian crisis, with 14 million people at risk of starvation and repeated outbreaks of deadly diseases like cholera. This crisis is linked to the armed conflict. The Saudi-led coalition's restrictions on imports have worsened the dire humanitarian situation.” 

In Mukalla in Southern Yemen, one of the seminar’s organizers described his city as one where “a half million people live in extreme poverty, and in the city streets beggars are searching for food in garbage, while sewage has floated in open drains, causing environmental pollution and spreading many diseases.” At least there is currently no fighting in the Mukalla region.

Against this discouraging backdrop, can peace journalism make a difference? I’ll have a better answer in a few days.

UPDATE
As I was posting this, I got a message from my Yemeni seminar organizer that is a reminder of yet another problem in the country—poor Internet. My friend writes,  “We are fine but unfortunately ,due to  the depression (storm) off the eastern coast of Yemen, the (communications) cable (for the) AL Mahra Governorate was cut off, which led to the suspension of internet service…I hope that this sudden and urgent matter does not delay the training date .Now 14 of 16 participants  all of them do not have the internet, including me, so I called  my friend in India to send this  message.”

I will keep you all posted.

Virtual PJ seminars to serve Yemen, Sudan, and KC
As it became clear that Covid-19 was pretty much going to cancel or postpone everything, I was seized with the awful thought that, at least until the end of the pandemic, I would be unable to continue my peace journalism work.

I was disabused of this notion in about 15 minutes.

While it’s true that I’ve had a bucket full of postponements, it’s equally true that I continue to work on peace journalism projects remotely. For example:

Yemen peace journalism seminars—I will be giving a series of two peace journalism seminars to journalists from Mukalla, Yemen in late July. I’m working with the Peace Journalism Platform there as well as a group of journalists who are in the process of launching a community radio station simply called, Peace Radio. I expect about 20 participants on Zoom. As you know, Yemen has been devastated by war since 2015. I’m hoping that our PJ project may in some small way contribute to a more peaceful country.

Sudan peace journalism project—The project, done in conjunction with the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum, will begin with a three day virtual workshop in early August. I’ll be going over the basics of PJ, including coverage of refugees and terrorism, both important topics in Sudan. It’s hoped this Zoom seminar will be followed up by one or several face to face workshops in Khartoum. Of course, that depends on Covid.

Kansas City Media Literacy Project—I received a Citizen Diplomacy Action Fund Rapid Response award from the U.S. Department of State to fund a project titled, “Media Literacy for Students: Lessons from Covid-19.”

The project will take place in the greater Kansas City area. It will utilize virtual seminars and projects to educate and inform students about our society’s information challenges as illustrated by disinformation about Covid-19, civil rights protests, and other current issues. The first virtual seminars will be held in September 2020, followed by the creation of a student-produced magazine and podcast discussing and analyzing media. The project will culminate with a Zoom media literacy summit in January, 2021.

Stay tuned to this space for details about each event.

Harvard event spotlights vital role of narratives
The vital role of narratives was highlighted yesterday by an august panel in a Zoom conference titled, “Grassroots Advocacy and Media Portrayals of Race, Gender, and Protests,” sponsored by several Harvard University-affiliated organizations.

I discussed partisan media narratives in the coverage of the recent George Floyd protests. See chart below. My presentation concentrated on three prominent divergences in conservative vs. liberal media narratives that related to depiction of violence, the portrayal of police, and coverage of Antifa.

As I discussed violence, no one in the audience of 70 was surprised to learn that Fox News used the terms “riots” or “rioters” five times more than CNN, or that Fox discussed looting 25% more than CNN. I also illustrated how the “rioters or protester” narrative was displayed on newspaper front pages, the best of which (Kansas City Star, Minneapolis Star Tribune) spotlighted the 99% who were peacefully protesting, while the least responsible (Chicago Tribune, New York Post) sensationalized and spotlighted the violence.

I then presented a small study I recently conducted that looked at narratives about police in the media. I searched four news outlets, two conservative and two liberal, for the terms “police brutality” and “police systemic racism.” Unsurprisingly, the term “police brutality” was used much more by liberal media (292 combined mentions between May 25 and June 2 in the New York Times and Washington Post Blogs vs. 37 mentions during the same period at washingtonTimes.com and the Wall St. Journal). As for “police systemic racism,” the study showed 70 combined mentions in the New York Times and Washington Post Blogs, vs. just 13 combined mentions at washingtontimes.com and the Wall St. Journal.

My presentation then discussed Antifa, Fox News’ favorite fantasy. Two different studies showed Fox playing up Antifa (six times more mentions than on CNN, for example), while exaggerating the purported threat. In reality, I said, the FBI found no evidence that Antifa had anything to do with the violence that accompanied some of the recent protests.

Once I laid out the partisan media narratives, I offered peace journalism as a way to improve this coverage, including reporting counternarratives that show different perspectives on protesters and the police; reporting on “them” with respect and empathy; and giving peacemakers a more prominent voice.

Co-panelist New York Times best-selling author (“All Souls: A Family Story from Southie”) and Northeastern University lecturer Michael Patrick Macdonald also emphasized the importance of narratives. He spoke about the importance and role of personal narratives in healing and the struggle for social justice. Macdonald believes social movements are best led by victims and through, at least at the outset, peer support networks. He said, “Movements begin with the telling of stories” and helping people to reclaim their own stories. Certainly, this reflects peace journalism’s call to give a voice to the voiceless, and to tell counternarratives about marginalized groups.

Social activist Vincent Bish, former operations director for Slack for Good and Obama administration appointee, talked about media stigma, or narratives, about those who have been incarcerated, and the importance of changing that narrative—offering a counternarrative, in PJ parlance. His Slack for Good initiative works to place formerly incarcerated persons in tech jobs by combating “social redlining” that denies  opportunities to those who have been imprisoned. One lesson Bish has learned as an activist is that “no one side is unequivocally good.” This is a valuable lesson, I believe, for journalists, especially those who engage in reflexive hyper-partisanship.

Rachel Brown Pittman, president of the United Nations Association of the U.S., spoke about her group’s grassroots advocacy in encouraging U.S. support and leadership for the United Nations. She said UNAUSA encourages its members to be “vocal and visible” in the media, and to blog, write op-eds, and otherwise actively engage on social media. As peace journalists, Pittman’s presentation should encourage journalists to reflect on offering counternarratives that illuminate the scope and efficacy of the UN, as opposed to the typical media narratives that feature only UN dysfunction.

The event was sponsored by Harvard University Kennedy School Women in Power Conference and Harvard’s UNAUSA and Students vs. Pandemic groups.

A letter to Fox News on their George Floyd coverage

Dear Fox News:

Your coverage of the unrest following the murder of George Floyd has crossed the line from your usual polemical, partisan, irresponsible “journalism” into inflammatory disinformation that could potentially incite violence. 

To paraphrase the take down of another demagogue (Joseph McCarthy) whom you would have no doubt supported: Fox News, have you no sense of decency?

One example of your indecency is your distorted, mendacious reporting and commentary about Antifa, a tiny anti-fascist protest movement (it’s too loosely constituted to even be called an organization) that has sometimes had violent encounters with right wingers and neo-Nazis.

Antifa is your favorite bogeyman. A study shows that from May 27 to June 10, “Fox News programs have mentioned Antifa more than 325 times, per TVEyes. Fox Business: 173+ times. Antifa has come up 67+ times on CNN and 88+ times on MSNBC.”

The truth is that Antifa poses little or no threat. According to the Washington Post, when the group tried to gather nationally, they topped out at a few hundred. On CNN, Historian Mark Bray, who has studied the leftist groups, agreed. He said, "You can see that when these groups in major cities mobilize, they don't get more than a couple hundred people…”

In addition, Antifa had nothing to do with the violence during the recent protests. The FBI found “no evidence that the American militant anti-fascist movement Antifa was involved in violence that erupted during national protests over the death of George Floyd.” Further, a Reuters “examination of federal court records related to the charges and social media posts by some of the suspects and interviews with defense lawyers and prosecutors found mostly disorganized acts of violence by people who have few obvious connections to Antifa or other left-wing groups.” Reuters looked at federal charging documents related to the protests and found “no violent acts are alleged at all” that are attributed to Antifa.

When you weren’t scaring your viewers with a false Antifa narrative, you frightened them with distorted reporting and commentary that emphasized violence over legitimate, peaceful protests and the legitimate reasons behind those protests. A GDELT study  (chart, right) showed that Fox reports used the terms “riots” or “rioters” five times more than CNN, and your reports discussed looting 25% more than CNN. And yes, you discussed Antifa six times more than on CNN.

The result is that your deliberately distorted and demonstrably false narratives have created an atmosphere of irrational fear, a fertile ground into which seeds of disinformation have been planted on social media. Thanks to Fox and fake social media posts, terrified gun-toting small town residents in the Western U.S. have gathered to defend themselves against an Antifa invasion –an invasion, of course, that never came, and will never come. (See recent, excellent articles in the New York Times and Buzzfeed. This is the alt right’s “waiting for the Great Pumpkin” moment, the difference being that Charlie Brown and his friends weren’t armed with AK-47’s. If Fox had reported the truth about Antifa, perhaps the good citizens of small town Montana, Oregon, and Idaho wouldn’t have been so quick to take up arms and contemplate violence.

Fox News, you can and must be better. Start with more honest coverage that does less pandering and more informing. Take my advice from Peace Journalism Principles and Practices, and report on “them” (the “other side”) fairly, respectfully, and with empathy; and report about the invisible causes and effects of the unrest, and not just the visible violence. You must report contextually in a way that reflects that 99% of the protesters were peaceful. Also, report counter-narratives that provide a different perspective on the protesters, the police, and the community (this means avoiding stereotypes like all cops are brutal or all protesters are violent thugs); and report with reconciliation in mind--discuss how healing can occur and what needs to happen for it to begin.

Fox, if you don’t get better, it’s inevitable that you and your allies spreading social media disinformation are going to eventually have blood on your hands, since it’s inevitable that one of your deluded viewers hopped up on Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson wades into a crowd of protesters and starts using the assault weapons you love so much.

Steven Youngblood, concerned viewer