Balkan journalists hear passion from Ukrainian colleague
(Pristina, Kosovo)-A powerful presentation by a Ukrainian journalist highlighted the “Reporting the Past” peace journalism seminar being held this week in Kosovo. 20 Kosovan and North Macedonian journalists are in attendance at the event, sponsored by the German NGO forumZFD.

Daria Meshcheriakova

Daria Meshcheriakova has been in Kosovo for five months on a program sponsored in part by the Association of Journalists of Kosovo. Her presentation focused on Russian war propaganda which actually began before the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. She said this propaganda has had a powerful effect in Russian-occupied areas of Eastern Ukraine as well as in Russia itself. In fact, Daria was told by Russian relatives that there was no bombing in Kiev, even though she experienced it firsthand, and that Ukraine had committed genocide in the Donbas region, which is demonstrably false. She talked about the horrors of living under Russian occupation, and zero tolerance in occupied Ukraine for even the mildest pro-Ukraine sentiment.

Daria applauded Kosovo’s approach to Russian propaganda, which was to block pro-Putin TV channels like Sputnik and Russia Today earlier this year. “They (Kosovo) knew when they should stop trusting this information,” she said.

She gave several pieces of advice to the journalists on reporting the war, including always getting a Ukrainian viewpoint, and never “equalizing” (what we might call giving a false equivalency) to the actions of Russia and Ukraine. She observed, “You can not be guilty for protecting your house (country).”

Her passionate presentation led to a fascinating discussion about journalists’ proper role during conflict. I opined that a journalists’ first responsibility is to the public, and not to wave the flag for a country, military, or ethnic group. I realize how hard this is in the heat of conflict, when, like Daria, your country and your people face extinction.

Participants discuss peace journalism

On the first day of the seminar yesterday, we got an overview of media in the region from Xhemajl Rexha, president of the local journalist’s association. In his opinion, journalists in the region don’t practice peace journalism since they often use inflammatory language, engage in racial slurs, and offer competing narratives to incidents in the region. 

In an article Rexha co-wrote for the forumZFD website, he concluded, “Over the years little has been done to bring together Kosovo and Serbia journalists to talk to one another. Moreover, what is needed is an internal dialogue between local journalists from both communities in Kosovo. Facing each other and talking about the hurtful language to the other community would be a good start.”

I also presented an overview of peace journalism on day one, and led a discussion with the journalists about how media in the region can build bridges between “us and them” and contribute to reconciliation. These excellent ideas included:

--Report on things in common..impact of conflict on women; how rebuild lives; EU integration; economic cooperation; culture; politics; corruption;

--Journalist cooperation/joint trainings; media literacy—schools, etc; learning languages; positive stories about ‘them’—counternarratives

--Stories about how people in one city live—how people coexist

--Report about Civil society—how they bring groups together; promoting cultural events

--Reach the unreachable—show different people with new stories—reach for the voice of the voiceless, interesting stories

--Establish new media outlets that are not ethnically based—mixed background reporters