Rethinking Journalism Practice Through Innovative Approaches to Post Conflict Reporting

Abstract

Since peace negotiations between the Colombian government and the country´s leftist Farc guerrillas began in 2012, it is generally accepted in the country that journalism has a responsibility to nurture peace and that the media can positively influence reconciliation in the aftermath of violence. But a recent analysis of domestic news coverage of the conflict concluded that the voices of victims were distinctly absent and that the overwhelming majority of Colombian news coverage involved official sources. This paper argues that a journalism intended to promote peace and reconciliation must include a wider range of voices and more specifically speak to those who have direct experience of conflict and the suffering it can inflict.In particular, we argue that a deeper understanding of trauma may help to strengthen resilience in both individuals and society, and ultimately contribute to peacebuilding. Drawing on the authors' research project working with young people embroiled in Colombia's civil conflict, the paper explores an alternative and innovative approach to the retelling of the stories of others and to post conflict reporting. At a broad societal level, the project aimed to make a contribution to the process of reconciliation in Colombia, using an autobiographical approach to capture and re-construct the participants' first-hand experiences of the conflict and to highlight the challenges of re-integration. It presented their hopes for peace and reconciliation through animation and the creation of a short, animated documentary. At a journalistic level, the project set out to explore the efficacy of combining traditional methods of storytelling with animation technology to offer anonymity to vulnerable contributors of testimony. The paper describes the research project and reflects on the challenges of working with vulnerable children and of telling their stories in a way that can promote the reintegration of marginalised individuals and groups into society.

Media Capture and Journalism as Emotional Labor: How Do Media Professionals Manage Bureaucratic Violence in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq?

“…Research, particularly in the field of trauma studies, has showcased the heavy emotional toll journalists endure while reporting in war zones, or covering violent incidents and crises, as well as the varied tactics journalists employ to attenuate their impact (Frey 2016;Kotisova 2019). Emotional labor here is intricately bound up with the high levels of resilience displayed by (and expected of) journalists when covering such traumatic events ( Jukes, Charles, and Fowler-Watt 2021). Such resilience should not be seen as innate, but rather continuously produced and reproduced by journalists through their emotional management and labor .…”

‘Storylistening’ as a methodology for peacebuilding among young survivors of conflict and their communities in Colombia

“…The project presented a range of ethical challenges, which are analysed in detail elsewhere (Jukes et al, 2021) and which we sought to mitigate through the design, execution and post-production phases. This entailed adopting a dynamic approach, which involved a constant dialogue between the teams working in Colombia and their colleagues back in the UK.…”

“…2 Due to the limitations of space within this article, its focus is on the textual narrative construction of the artefact, which underpins the methodological approach we call storylistening. We have written in greater depth elsewhere about the use of imagery in this project (Charles and Fowler-Watt, 2020;Jukes et al, 2021).…”