Written words and visual forms of expression – both contributions to journalism – are attempts to convey images of reality. However, having understood that personal experiences and prior knowledge form individual perspectives and bias, objective coverage is simply impossible. What we can do as journalists, is to aim for profound, balanced reporting without taking sides. That is our aim with the Many Peaces Magazine.
We have been establishing a very specific form of journalism. It might contain attributes of what one defines as peace journalism or constructive journalism, but in the end we have developed our own principles and professional standards. Firstly, we reveal who we are by including our backgrounds and experience. By doing this, we try to help the reader keep in mind that journalism is not objective and that the perspective from which an article is written makes a difference for the message conveyed. Secondly, we prefer analysis over brief news coverage. Especially when reporting on conflicts, we agree on the need to understand underlying dynamics instead of glimpsing at bombs, attacks and violence. Thirdly, we report on constructive and affirmative initiatives and movements in conflict areas and aspire to open up alternative perspectives on contexts of protracted conflicts. Fourthly, we do have strict editorial policies when it comes to marginalization, racism or discrimination, however, we do not limit our articles to a specific group of authors. We invite people from diverse academic fields of research, from all over the world and with a wide variety of writing styles to contribute to our magazine.
We have been establishing a specific form of journalism. It might contain attributes of what one defines as peace journalism or constructive journalism, but in the end we have developed our own principles and professional standards.
Having talked about this plurality, we have to be aware of an emerging challenge: we cannot “direct” the perspectives in our magazine since it is open to authors with varying approaches and also for discussions. We instead aim to provide a platform of dialogue between different, sometimes contradictory perspectives. If you are interested to join this dialogue, I kindly invite you to contribute to the new “Voices”-section and share your opinion with us.
With this volume we are celebrating the 10th jubilee of this magazine. I want to say thank you to everyone who has been involved with the magazine so far. Since its establishment in 2014, many precious articles have been published. The founding members who made this possible deserve special credit and I am grateful for the motivation of our current international team members who are spending much of their free time on the magazine, which is organized and produced on a completely voluntary basis.
I hope you will enjoy reading about “Peace Journalism” and appreciate the diversity of topics and perspectives in this volume.
Clara Maier
Editor in Chief
If you are interested in Volume 10 of the Many Peaces Magazine, please check out our subscription models or contact us via magazine@manypeaces.org!
