Brazil: media professionals urged to ‘build bridges, not make bad situations worse’

Media professionals, students and researchers in Brazil have been urged to reflect on the impact of their output and public role, and should aim to “build bridges instead of pouring fuel on the fire and making bad situations even worse.”

The advice was given by Professor Steven Youngblood during an online workshop on Tuesday. The event was organised by the Humanitarian Journalism and Media Interventions Research Group (HumanizaCom) at the Postgraduate Programme in Social Communication at the Methodist University of São Paulo.

Speaking on the topic of “Peace Journalism: Far Beyond Violent Conflicts”, Youngblood covered the basic concepts of peace journalism and its applications in the global contemporary context, including analyses of press materials about Gaza.

The workshop was intended to raise awareness about ways to incorporate context, solutions and peace perspectives into daily media coverage to reduce the risk of conflicts, hate speech and violations of human rights and international law. On more than one occasion, Youngblood warned of the “fine line” between exposing and conveying facts to the public and potentially exploiting them.

He also emphasised the importance of “giving a voice to the voiceless” marginalised populations, with examples provided from Palestine, the United States, Brazil and Canada, as well as other places.

Participants were provided with examples taken from international media coverage of the Israeli war against the Palestinians in Gaza and the cross-border incursion by Hamas last October. They were asked to analyse and reflect on any sensationalism, misinformation and war propaganda.

“Victims, immigrants and refugees,” stressed Youngblood, “should be humanised; stereotypes should be deconstructed; and practices that retraumatise them should be avoided.”

His lecture was broadcast online in English, with simultaneous translation into Portuguese, available on HumanizaCom’s channels.

The author of the book Principles and Practices of Peace Journalism, Youngblood has conducted workshops and lectures in at least 44 countries, 32 of them in person. Having taught for 27 years at Park University in the United States, where he founded the Global Centre for Peace Journalism, in October he will assume the coordination of the journalism programme at the East-West Centre in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The event was organised in collaboration with Middle East Monitor – Brazil (MEMO); the Foundation for Global Governance and Sustainability (Foggs); the Global South Perspectives Network (GSPN); the Inclusive Society Institute (ISI); the MigraMundo project; the Dr Osmar de Souza Parliamentary School; the Paulista Association of Legislative and Audit Schools (Apel); and the Brazilian Association of Legislative and Audit Schools (Abel).

HumanizaCom is a study and research project that aims to propose and collaborate on solutions to contemporary issues by strengthening journalism’s role as a guardian of human and civil rights in the context of wars and environmental, political and economic crises.

Invitation card to a seminar by entitled: ‘Peace Journalism: Far Beyond Violent Conflicts’ by professor Steven Youngblood

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