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Life Onboard |
LAST UPDATE
July 19, 2005
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| site design imagesparkle.com |
| August 22, 2004 |
Peace Counts: Peace Reporting and Sustaining Partnership |
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| Michael and Uli, the Peace Counts team |
Traveling with Peace Boat from Egypt to Dover, England, Michael Gleich, coordinator of the German
based multi-media journalism project Peace Counts, and Uli Reinhardt, photojournalist and member of
the Peace Counts team, began a lecture onboard Peace Boat by asking the question: Does the media concentrate
on solutions, or conflict and violence? Answering this question, Michael pointed out that in the world
of Journalism "bad news is good news," and it is the reporting of bad news that sells. He
gave a long list of examples from a major publication and asked: Where is the positive reporting?
Where is the reporting being done that focuses on solutions? |
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| Presenting a strategy to disseminate positive news to society |
This is where peace Counts comes in. "The basis [of Peace Counts] is to show that peace is the
sensation, not war." To do this Peace Counts send teams - a writer and photographer - to conflict
areas in the world, to report on, and draw attention to "peace building." The focus is simple
- Peace reporting instead of war reporting." But in the fast paced world of journalism Michael
points out that peace reporting goes against the norm. "The culture of peace is a long-term process
that is built in small steps" said Michael. To counter the fast pace of the media world, Peace
Counts uses a multi-media approach to present information to a broad audience. Making this approach
possible is a network of writers, reporters, photographers, scientists, and others, totaling roughly
50 people. So far Peace Counts has covered stories published in print, books, online (via websites),
CD-ROMs for schools/peace educators, television, and radio programs. |
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| Uil giving a visual presentation on the struggle for peace in Northern Ireland |
Summarizing the philosophy of the project Michael quoted the Tibetan saying: "A tree falling
makes more noise than a whole forest growing." To Peace Counts, "this means that war is
loud - war is the falling tree - and there are a lot of documenters recording this fall. Our project
reports on the growth of the forest." By doing this, Peace Counts is able to focus the reporting
on the successes in conflict areas, and point out the valuable work being done by NGOs and members
of the civil society. Aside from living in a society free from violence, the teams emphasize peace
economy versus war economy, and the economic benefits of a peaceful society, by illustrating that
sustainable development needs a peaceful framework.
Speaking from 30 years of experience photographing
conflict areas around the world, Uli has since shifted his focus to positive reporting where the emphasis
is on up-close portraits instead of stereotypes. "We
focus on best practices — the best work on the ground, by peace promoters, successful mediators,
and peaceful political transitions." Examining Peace Boat and its many participants, students,
and guest lectures, Michael and Uli were often spotted conducting interviews or taking pictures
of activities onboard. By partnering with NGOs and other "peace builders" Peace Counts
is able to use collective knowledge, which has been gained over the last five decades. In the last
two years 20 teams have been sent to nearly 20 countries, including Israel, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka
and Northern Ireland. Pointing out the importance of establishing long-term partnerships and trust,
the team spoke of the success of a recent feature that stemmed from a visit with Peace Boat to Monstiar,
Bosnia. After meeting with local youth groups, they returned to report on the "bridge" being
built by the groups to end the divide between the Muslim and Croatian communities. |
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| On the streets of Belfast, Photo by Uli |
As Peace Boat approached its upcoming visit to Belfast, Uli took the opportunity to display his photography
while providing insight into the lives of Northern Irish. The focus of Peace Counts story was not
the violence between Protestants and Catholics, but centered around two opposing resistance fighters,
who after spending years in prison now serve to build peace in Belfast by working with local youth.
Sometime after publishing the story Peace Counts was able to bring the two men together for the first
time in Berlin. "It looked a little bit like they were colleagues in two different companies,
not two people who 5 or 6 years ago may have killed each other." The team pointed out that by
meeting, the two men were able to make plans for joint programs in the future, reinforcing to Michael
that, "peace is possible, even sometimes only on a very small scale." |
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