By Abdulai Fasineh Dumbuya
The President of Women in the Media Sierra Leone (WMSL) Eastina Taylor has called on female journalists to promote dialogue and facilitate conversations in an effort to foster peace between conflicting parties in their communities.
Taylor was speaking at a two-day event organised by WIMSAL on 12th October 2023 in Freetown on the theme: ‘Empowering female journalists and women-focused CSOs to document and disseminate project outcomes’. The training on Peace, Media and Gender in Politics which targeted female journalists across the country and Civil Society Activists is part of a UNDP funded project through the Peacebuilding Fund to support Women Focused CSOs in Sierra Leone.
Under the terms of the truce, she said female journalists should adopt interactive media initiatives in their programmes by encouraging local communities to participate in peacebuilding activities and discussions.
In a world blighted by conflicts and misunderstandings, Taylor said the power of the media to transform, inform, and build a long-lasting peace cannot be understated, emphasizing that an empowered journalist with the right tools and knowledge can de-escalate the conflict by disseminating messages of peace.
She said dissemination of reconciliation initiatives can be a significant tool in ensuring that peace prevails. She highlighted that showcasing of programmes and initiatives aimed at healing community conflicts with the view to encouraging dialogue should be part of the journalism trade.
“Our shared goal as women in the media is to harness the potential of media in promoting understanding, resolving conflicts, and building peace. We have to be a change agent and architectures of peace in our homes, communities, and the country by extension,’’ the president emphasized.
Highlighting the challenges in peacebuilding, she said the risk faced by journalists in conflict areas can be a threat to their safety, limitations, and restrictions imposed by government or conflicting parties, and emotional challenges such as stress.
She however said that the opportunities are plenty given the fact that you will be raising awareness, advocating for change and reform, and ensuring international collaboration thereby participating with global media organisations for increased impact and support.
She called on journalists to be accurate and truthful in plying their trade in the hope of installing peace and not igniting conflicts in their media platforms so that the public would confine trust in journalism. She added that this can be fostered through being transparent with your sources as well as being objective.
Addressing the issue of empathy between journalists and politicians, she said the notion of empathy in journalism is barely understood by many reporters, crystalising that empathy does not mean an agreement between two parties. But she said it means telling the truth devoid of any biased feelings.
In the wake of any ethical issue, Taylor said journalism is a discipline of verification, and by that same token; she said journalists have to check the veracity of one information against another so that they be credible in the eyes of the public.
One of the trainees described the event as a defining milestone for them and encouraged colleagues to cascade the knowledge to others who were not present at the event, saying that the spirit of the training should be nurtured by way of creating a sense of responsively in each one of them.
Copyright © 2023 Politico (13/10/23)
