Event examines PJ, empathy, rebuilding trust in media
(Milwaukee, Wisconsin)-Re-framing, and re-emphasizing, peace journalism approaches was on the menu on Friday at the insightful 2025 Nieman Symposium sponsored by Marquette University’s Diederich College of Communications.

The event featured two panels and a keynoter addressing the subject, “Journalism in the face of conflict and contemporary politics.”

The re-framing content came from Dr. Sue Robinson from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She framed peace journalism as a practice that should be guided by care—caring about the subjects we report about; and being a caregiver for those who have been marginalized or victimized. Robinson laid out five qualities of care for the audience of students and faculty members. These are attentiveness, responsibility, confidence, responsiveness, and solidarity. She also emphasized the importance of community building, and of listening and learning, that in turn stoke the empathy that journalists need.

While she didn’t use the term peace journalism, I think Dr. Robinson hit upon a key PJ principle nonetheless—that to build bridges, give a voice to the marginalized, offer counternarratives, and do the other things peace journalists do, one must have a foundation build on empathy.

Catherine Gicheru (L), Sudeshna Roy at Marquette Univ.

The event’s keynote speaker, Kenyan journalist, editor, and founder of the African Women Journalists’ Project Catherine Gicheru, re-emphasized many of the most compelling justifications for peace journalism. She talked about the divisive forces corroding society, including political polarization, economic marginalization, societal exclusion, and disinformation. Gicheru challenged the traditional objectivity model, noting that “Journalism is never neutral,” and that it is a journalist’s responsibility to speak truth to power.

She also opined about how journalists can help restore the public’s trust in the media by re-thinking the voices they amplify (“voice of the voiceless” in PJ parlance); working with survivors; and connecting with regular people on the ground through mechanisms like community radio. Gicheru stressed the importance of these connections, noting that, “Building bridges starts with the stories we tell.”

Building bridges is one of the concepts I emphasized in my presentation that began with the basics of peace journalism, then slid into a discussion of my recent PJ work. This includes bridge building cross border journalism programs with Indian and Pakistani journalists, as well as a project that brought together journalists from Northern Ireland and Kosovo to discuss how to responsibly report about past violent events in both places, and how those events are memorialized.

Other informative panelists included exiled journalists Pedro Molina and Juan Carlos Ampie from Nicaragua, and Anuradha Bhasin from Indian-controlled Kashmir. They discussed how journalists were silenced in their countries. Bhasin said journalism was “torn limb by limb” in Kashmir. All three warned that the same can happen here in the U.S., or anywhere. Molina noted that the best way to keep our rights is to exercise them.

Dr. Susan Moeller from the University of Maryland also presented an interesting discussion about what makes news consumers care about the world, and about how peace journalism and ethical journalism are synonymous.

It was an honor to be among these august panelists, and to hear support for the concepts of peace journalism, whether it was called that or not. Hats off to Dr. Sudeshna Roy for organizing this vitally important event.

Exiles journalists' panel, Nieman Symposium