(3) PRINCIPLES AND GUIDELINES FOR TMS CONTRIBUTORS

Deadline for Submitting Materials to TMS: Sundays 12-Noon (GMT)

In a nutshell Prof. Johan Galtung defines Peace Journalism as follows:

Besides the usual questions, “How many were killed today?” and “Who is winning?” ask two additional ones: “What is this conflict about?” and “What are possible solutions?”

Contributions to the TMS website (whether Commentary or News) adhere to five main principles, the ‘5 Cs’:

* Be Creative
* Be Constructive
* Be Compassionate
* Be Concrete
* Be Concise

-1 and 2: Creative and Constructive – Write a solution-oriented piece; focus on proposed solutions acceptable by all parties, not only on identifying problems or blaming those at fault. Peace Journalism is not merely investigative journalism, advocacy, activism or description of events/violence – neither is it biased.  The TRANSCEND method has three steps:

1. Identify the goals of the various parties involved directly or indirectly in a conflict, and possible contradictions between them;

2. Distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate goals;

3. Find creative solutions to transcend the contradictions and fulfill all the legitimate goals.

Although a peace journalist/columnist/commentator is not a mediator, s/he should be aware and offer a context not offered by most of the corporate business media that produces mostly war journalism. The key aspect is ‘not biased,’ meaning, not aligned with any of the parties.

-3: Compassionate – Commentaries must be respectful of all cultures and belief systems and not hurt or offend any group; compassion for all groups involved in a conflict – at least for their suffering. There is freedom of speech, and also the right to dignity and respect. Offending someone’s cultural values or sacred beliefs is not covered by free speech. The Danish cartoons mocking Mohammed (and even more the Danish Prime Minister’s refusal to engage in a dialogue with Muslims) hurt the feelings of over a billion people and sparked avoidable violence. We wish to contribute to healing, not to hatred, pain and suffering. Compassion and empathy are concepts too often drowned in professional cynicism

-4: Concrete – Writings should not consist only of generalities but be concrete, specific and detailed, without assuming that the reader is already familiar with the matter/theme. Always identify on the first reference of a name or place. To the famous Journalism-101 questions: WHAT? WHO? WHEN? HOW? WHERE? WHY? we add: WHAT CREATIVE SOLUTIONS EXIST? Language and its reflective use is a medium to foster ideas and creativity, adding what mainstream media most often lacks.

-5: Concise – An ideal article has up to 1,000 words or 10,000 characters, is written in easily readable English and presents new insights, even surprises, to keep the reader’s interest. It provides a lucid and credible description of facts/events, informs, explains, puts events/actions/reactions, and so forth, in context for outsiders (foreigners) and for those who need/want to know and form an educated opinion.

The good peace journalist/commentator/columnist enables the reader to think further through diverse perspectives, and to identify the causes and all the parties to a conflict – not merely the simplistic A is applying/receiving violence to/from B – “and that is awful!”

S/he is not a missionary in a political sense, meaning, not a campaigner for an institution, nor an initiative, nor an organization.

REMARKS:

* The editor reserves the right to edit all writings for clarity, grammar and spelling, and publish at his/her own discretion, based on content relevance.

* Commentaries are uploaded every Monday; after one week they are transferred to Commentary archives.

* These guidelines apply to all direct contributors to TMS. The editor will post articles published elsewhere which may not be fully within these parameters but neither in conflict with them.

Comments/suggestions are welcome. Please use ‘Contact us.’

Antonio C. S. Rosa – TMS Editor