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2006-09-13 - Peace and Conflict Journalism II in Dumaguete |
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Yours or Mine? - peace journalism in a radio talk show on mining. | Dinner Postponed At Charlie’s Checkpoint
Peace and Conflict Journalism II in Dumaguete, Philippines
by: Ledrolen R. Manriquez “This is the first time that I saw Filipino journalists voluntarily postponing their dinner to work on a group exercise of making a news story using text messages. This really amazes." Antonia Koop, facilitator of the Peace and Conflict Journalism Training II (PJ 2) held at Sta. Monica Resort in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental, Philippines last August 11-14, 2006 expresses her amazement on the participants’ reaction on the group work given to them on the evening of the first session day of the training. |
Jana Gerold, InWent’s representative also agreed with Antonia Koop in her observation on how the journalists responded to the group work assigned to them Saturday night. It was highly noted that the participants seemed to be glued on their chairs and indulged so much into the activity that they either voluntarily skipped or postponed their dinner for that night. The activity was to write a story using PJ principles with data coming from text messages, photos and a map kindly provided by Charlie, the fictive photographer of the Luzviminda Times. The journalists were given the whole night to work on it and were expected to publish the following morning.
“I believe our trainings are unique from other organizations because we came from a synergy of talents, resources and interests. Let me call it ‘fueled by passion’. We all come from different background – the academe, the aspiring young journalists and the practicing ones – to be trained on our common love, communication. This is a blessed weekend for us, after finishing PJ 1 some six and more months ago, to now go deeper into peace journalism…” Jean Lee Patindol, PECOJON’s National Coordinator-Philippines said in her welcome message to the participants.
The Peace and Conflict Journalism Trainings are organized and conducted by InWent and PECOJON. It is composed of two weekend courses – PJ 1 and PJ 2. The first course covers Creative Conflict Transformation and Practical Peace Journalism. The second course, which is a follow up of the first course, is scheduled six to twelve months after PJ 1 and focuses on assessing the participants’ PJ skills and delves into Peace Journalism’s broader context concentrating on journalism and society, cause and impact, and its role for peace.
The follow up course is designed as a melting pot of participants coming from different venues of the first course. For this training, participants came from PJ 1 Zamboanga, Bacolod and Manila . This design came up after considering the participants recommendation to merge journalists from other areas of the country to immediately answer questions and issues that come up during PJ 1 Trainings. The questions relate to their journalistic work, the issues they cover and how these news and issues are handled by those from the field (e.g. Mindanao) and those on the desk (e.g. Manila editors).
In the discussion, Antonia Koop stressed that, “Peace Journalism is conflict journalism – in best shape!” She presented the Peace Journalism Framework developed by PECOJON. The framework consists of three circle layers centered in the International Journalism Ethics of Impartiality, Accuracy and Fairness which is then enveloped by a second circle composed of PJ skills such as multi-sourcing, diversity, people-focused journalism etc. The last frame that encloses this framework is the journalist’s full awareness of his/her role in the society.
The second day hosted reporting of the news article assigned the night before and two major group activities of a television talk show on media killings and a radio talk show on mining. The TV group choreographed the show with guests from the church, the government and a media organization. In the like manner, the radio group also designed their show to have guests coming from the government, the mining industry and the community affected. The TV and radio show exercise challenged the participants to use PJ principles in broadcast media.
Also, the participants were very fortunate to have German webmaster Marius Strohschneider, who came to the country from Germany to train members on how to use the features of the interactive website. The website is created as a connector for journalists and will host the international network. The forum, education and interactive tools, conflict database, the magazine, the e-ferret’s race and the security system for journalists are some of the website’s capacities. The idea behind the website is to provide a common venue wherein journalists all over the country and the world as well can exchange and share information especially on the news they cover. Its conflict data base allows access to a data of conflict that will be useful to journalists as research materials. The security system on the other hand, intends to develop an emergency alert system especially for journalists in conflict areas.
The training opened the possibilities for participants to share their individual attempts of implementing PJ principles they have learned from PJ 1. It became a venue to discover strategies most particularly on what worked well and what to avoid. It gave the participants the chance to assess how far they have gone after PJ 1 and to see what else they can do after gaining additional knowledge and being once again equipped with additional capacities in Peace Journalism given in PJ 2. And since PJ 2 is the last course of the PJ Trainings, the PECOJON website will be uploaded with new information in PJ and online trainings will be made available to sustain the participants’ capacities.
As a closure Antonia Koop said to the participants that it is up to them now how they will be able to work in their respective field using PJ. As a response, Ces Rodriguez, a participant of the training said, "And it is...But I sincerely hope we continue to reinforce learnings (and propagate friendships) through this network. Back in our own work realities, it is easy to slip into the flow of how things have always been. I am glad this network exists to help keep us on track and especially pleased the website can now be the repository of our training tools. They are valuable gifts..."
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