Solutions-oriented journalism for areas of conflict
Another post from our friends at Ashoka Peace. We at Beyond Profit love this idea of “constructive journalism” and hope to be leading the trend in the social enterprise space.
Envision a world where media focuses on enabling people to improve their lives and societies.
This is indeed a powerful statement; nevertheless, our current system of media achieves the exact opposite of this alternate vision. The media’s tendency to feature problems and scary, disastrous situations contributes to a neurotic and morose society. The result is a generally disempowered collective “us”, and our ability to be changemakers is deeply thwarted. Providing an enabling environment for social change requires a transformation in the way news and knowledge is collected, analyzed, verified and presented; journalism must cover problems from the perspective of how they can be solved. This type of solutions-oriented journalism, also known as ‘constructive journalism’, aims to resolve problems by comparing and scrutinizing solutions and by involving stakeholders in the process.
‘Constructive journalism’ is a new term coined by Ashoka Fellow Michael Gleich, who recognized the inherent power of journalism and media to promote peace. His Peace Counts project aims to discover role models for peacemaking around the world and to bring them broad exposure by creating fascinating features and photo essays. Michael trains journalists in conflict zones from Colombia to Sri Lanka to conduct independent research and report on hatred and violence. Peace Counts publishes the stories online and shares them with national and international media outlets. In cooperation with the Institute for Peace Education, Michael brings these journalists’ stories to schools in Germany and conflict regions as a medium for teaching students about peace.
Michael has also founded a companion organization, Culture Counts, which documents how people of different backgrounds and skin colors constructively live and work together to create a more peaceful society. Michael’s work demonstrates that media can be creatively used as an effective tool for peace building around the world. Read on (here) for an interview with Michael.
