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.