For approaching 15 years, Pressenza has been developing a nonviolent style of journalism driven by the urgent need to put a different type of information into the public domain: information which contributes to the wellbeing of society, to the surpassing of violence as a means to resolve conflict, and the humanisation of individuals, collectives and entire nations whose experience of pain and suffering on a daily basis goes unreported in the mainstream media.
With its inspiration in the current of thought known as Universalist Humanism developed by the Argentinian thinker and writer, Silo, and echoing and building on the work of Peace Journalism developed over decades by the likes of the Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung among many others, Nonviolent Journalism is a way of practicing the art of communication that criticises and denounces factors and events that generate pain and suffering in human beings while offering the possibility of including in journalistic productions elements that open the way towards a nonviolent future for humanity.
Starting from the conception of what defines us as human beings and critical of the established principle of “objective journalism”, nonviolent journalism is a methodology for humanising the earth which can be applied to any form of communication from news reporting, to interviews, opinion pieces, photo stories, press releases, social media and any other of the myriad of genres available to the communicator.
As a global collective of volunteers, Pressenza is delighted to offer to students and practitioners of communication and journalism a 6-month period of professional practice during which our experienced editors will share their experiences and techniques for communicating in a series of group workshops and personal mentorship.
The course will start at the beginning of June and run through to December. It is offered freely to anyone who can commit to the recommended minimum level of 7 hours per week, with the possibility to do more than that for those with more time available. During this period, the work of course participants will be published with their own by-line, allowing them to build up a portfolio of work, and at the end of the course, Pressenza will write a letter of recommendation to any future employer. The best work will be picked up by our translation teams and translated into some of the 8 other languages, besides English, that Pressenza currently publishes in.
As a network of unpaid volunteers, Pressenza offers this course for free with the expectation that participants will feel part of big family of nonviolent communicators with whom they would like to contribute media productions from time to time in the future, regardless of where their careers lead them.
In order to participate in the course, please click on the link to register. An introductory meeting will take place on the 17th of May at 13:00 London time. If you are in a time zone that is inconvenient, don’t let that put you off as we will do our best to find a way to include you.
