Making Peace Visible

When we first read Suchitra Vijayan’s reporting on the media in India we were shocked to learn that much of the press in the world’s largest democracy, had fallen in line with Narendra Modi’s authoritarian agenda. Now it feels like a portent of what could happen in the United States. In India today, 75% or more of news organizations are now owned by 4 or 5 large corporations, all led by allies of...

This episode comes to us from independent journalist Scott Gurian.  In the Nørrebro neighborhood of Copenhagen, there's a small building with a garden and wooden seats. At first glance, it looks like some sort of neighborhood cafe, but it's actually the Menneskebiblioteket or Human Library , where the "readers" and "books" are people having deeply personal and intimate conversations about topics t...

Peace negotiations and reconciliation processes can change the world – but they’re not much to look at. The shortage of compelling images is one of many challenges to making peace more tangible in our very visual world.   But if  we expand the concept of peace to include what peace actually means to people who have lived through conflict, then what peace looks like can be expansive. Like a portrai...

Think about the infrastructure that makes your community tick. Roads, schools, buses and trains, parks and playgrounds, the sewage treatment plant are probably the kind of things that first come to mind. But what about local news? Our guest this episode, journalism scholar Jennifer  Henrichsen, says local newspapers, news webistes, and TV and radio stations are a necessary part of public infrastru...

This podcast is a project of Making Peace Visible , is a small 501(c)3 nonprofit organization based in Somerville, Massachusetts. What we do is unique -- consistently analyzing how the media covers conflict, and amplifying stories of resolution and reconciliation that are often ignored by the mainstream media.   In the month of July, we're working to raise $40,000 to continue and grow this work. W...

This podcast is a project of Making Peace Visible , is a small 501(c)3 nonprofit organization based in Somerville, Massachusetts. What we do is unique -- consistently analyzing how the media covers conflict, and amplifying stories of resolution and reconciliation that are often ignored by the mainstream media.   In the month of July, we're working to raise $40,000 to continue and grow this work. W...

In hopes of learning from the past and In light of US missile strikes on Iranian nuclear sites and subsequent retaliation in an escalating regional conflict, we're revisiting one of our best episodes on how Western media covers war. Guest Bette Dam is a Dutch journalist who covered the war in Afghanistan for 15 years. She began her coverage in 2006, embedded with the Dutch military. She’s the auth...

In the United States, about one sixth of the federal budget goes to defense.  Why are many Americans so passive in the face of the massive expenditures for defense that crowd out spending on human needs like education, healthcare and infrastructure? Why does much of the media accept the status quo? And is all of this spending making Americans and the world any safer? Our guest helping tackle these...

“Humans are not rational beings with emotions. In fact, we're just the opposite. We're emotionally based beings who can only think rationally when we feel that our identities, as we see them, are understood and valued by others.” Those words from neuroscientist Bob Deutch triggered a lightbulb moment in the mind of Tim Phillips, a veteran peacebuilder and educator.  Over the past twelve years, Phi...

Support for Donald Trump is slipping lately, at least in part because of the President’s violations of democratic rules and norms. In a New York Times/ Sienna College poll , a majority of respondents disapproved of Trump’s recent actions, including moves to eliminate government programs enacted by Congress, deport legal immigrants who have protested Israel, and ignore Supreme Court rulings.  This...

Brazil’s Arariboia Indigenous Territory is a green island that spans more than 413,000 hectares (1.02 million acres) in a sea of deforestation. Though the territory is protected by law, it’s become the site of incursions by loggers and cattle ranchers. In a five-year investigative series for the environmental news outlet Mongabay, reporter Karla Mendes exposed environmental crimes in Arariboia and...

What's it like to lead without a military? This episode, from our friends at Disrupting Peace, focuses on Costa Rica, and explores what happens when a country abolishes its military, Costa Rica’s approach to domestic security, and the ways that having a military can increase violence and instability in a country. Carlos Alvarado Quesada served as President of Costa Rica from 2018 to 2022. While pr...

Venezuela is a tough place to be a journalist. Our guest this episode, Tony Frangie Mawad wrote last year about the possibility of an opposition victory that would upend the regime of President Nicolás Maduro in the country's July elections. But even though the opposition candidate won the vote, Maduro held on to power, and this year has cracked down further on his opponents and an already-weakene...

After the end of the Cold War, many academics and policymakers believed that a global state of peace was achievable.  People talked about a “peace dividend”:  A long-term benefit. as budgets for military spending would be redirected to social programs or returned to citizens in the form of lower taxes.   Our guest this episode, Bridget Conley, started her career in peacebuilding in the 1990s. At t...

When the Trump administration slashed the budget and suspended most of the staff of the United States Agency for International Development last month, their representatives said the agency was using taxpayer dollars to fund a radical, “woke” agenda around the world. Criticism coming from the Left since the founding of USAID in 1961 has characterized USAID as an arm of American imperialism.  The re...

Often the news covers crises without context. That's especially true when it comes to coverage of the Global South in international media.  Our guest this episode, journalist and documentary filmmaker Etant Dupain, gives us a behind-the-headlines look at events in Haiti, his home country. Dupain says that the gangs who control much of the country now are supported by powerful elites. Their aim, hi...

Israel and Hamas are just over two weeks into a ceasefire agreement, after fifteen months of fighting.  This is a paradoxical moment to talk about long term peace. The horrific October 7th attacks and the near - destruction of Gaza that followed, served to amplify already high levels of distrust, hate, and trauma. At the same time, the war has demonstrated to Gazans that their government placed co...

Imagine you’re living through a crisis in your part of the world. It could be a natural disaster, a contentious election, or even a coup d’etat.  Rumors are swirling on social media, on television, and even your family group chat. Events are unfolding rapidly, and you don’t know what to believe.   What if, just by sending a text message, you could reach a trusted source for an instant fact check?...

This is a pivotal moment in Syria, the abrupt end of a brutal dictatorship that killed and tortured thousands and terrorized Syrian society. The Assad regime also suppressed speech, and we’re now seeing a surge in independent reports on the news and social media. The big question is what happens next? And what does this change mean to the region?  In this episode, we welcome back Zaina Erhaim to s...

Please consider supporting our work at the intersection of peace, conflict, and the media! Make a tax-deductible contribution today at makingpeacevisible.org . Thank you!  When you look at the online reactions to major events, or watch news footage of political rallies, you might conclude that people on the political Left have a completely different moral compass, – or sense of right and wrong–, f...

Support this podcast with a tax-deductible donation .  Photographer Anastasia Taylor-Lind and writer Alisa Sopova create intimate, accessible portraits of Ukrainian civilians living close to the frontlines of the Russian invasion. Sometimes their subjects are picnicking in a park or tending a garden. Other times, they’re repairing a ceiling damaged by shelling or waiting for departure on an evacua...

In the 2024 election, it was clearer than ever that Americans are  “watching different movies,” as political analyst Van Jones put it . Essentially, we’re living inside different narratives that aren’t of our own making. During this campaign season more than ever before, the presidential and VP candidates appeared on sympathetic podcasts as a way to appeal to younger voters.  As a podcaster, journ...

If you’re listening to this podcast, you’re probably concerned by the level of polarization we’re seeing in societies around the world.   We can point fingers at social media, the news media, political parties, fear mongering leaders, poor education, broken political systems… the list is long. The divides can seem so vast, the problems so huge. It’s easy to retreat into a huddle with people who se...

Our guest in this episode is a scholar and peacebuilder who knows the world of peacebuilding intimately, and offers a critique from the inside.  Qamar-ul Huda is the author of Reenvisioning Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution in Islam , published in April 2024. He’s worked for major players like the US Institute of Peace and the UN Development Program. He served in the Obama Administration as Se...

"Nature knows no political borders. " - David Lehrer On a small desert campus, students from Israel, Palestine, and other parts of the Middle East take classes in ecology, earth sciences and renewable energy. They also debate the hot button issues: history, politics, religion, war, occupation, terrorism, while learning to listen actively, and living together amidst contradicting narratives.  Our g...