Tony Robinson is an editor at Pressenza, a press agency dedicated to peace communication. We spoke with him about peace journalism and communication within the framework of the IPB World Peace Congress in Barcelona.
You can watch the full video of the interview at this YouTube link.
How did you enter the world of activism and defense of rights?
I have been an activist for 30 years, since my time at university. I met a group of humanists and from then on I began to participate in various groups to develop a better world, a world of peace through active non-violence.
We live in a violent world. This violence is in us. From a young age we are trained to react with violence, we are not taught how to react with non-violence. So in my life I have always tried to do something to improve the world, but also to reflect on my own behavior and my attitudes, the beliefs that I have, and I have discovered that it is very possible to change things in the world and also in oneself.
And that led you to Pressenza…
In 2009, he participated in an activity that was called at the time the World March for Peace and Non-Violence, which began in New Zealand and toured the planet reaching Argentina, the Andes. That march was the launch of Pressenza. Pressenza was launched to cover the World March and then we continued to develop the agency because we realized that news of peace and non-violence does not really appear in the media, violence sells more in the media.
But there is an extraordinary number of people in the world who are working every day to improve their living conditions, so we adapted Pressenza after the March to give space to social movements, collectives, individuals who are doing things that act like demonstration effect.
In practice, what does peace journalism consist on?
Nonviolent journalism has to do with many aspects, the selection of topics, for example. We choose things that have to do with reconciliation, advances in human rights, alternative economy, everything that has to do with the possibility that human beings can develop a life worthy of a human being. Now we are in a system that limits with violence, economic, psychological, racial, gender violence, that is, there are several forms of violence, there are many.
It is important to decipher a little what is happening in the world, the interests that are behind the events that appear in the media and then put an alternative narrative, because if we have to believe what the media tells us, we have to believe that human beings cannot do anything, that money is the highest value in this system, that a system that works for everyone cannot be organized in an equitable way. We are on a planet with eight billion human beings, the vast majority live in absolute poverty, they have no money to pay for medicine, for example, they cannot educate their children, they have no security in their old age, but this, all this is changeable, all this can change.
For us, propaganda is not only what appears in the media, but also what doesn’t. Because if there is something very interesting, very important, that goes in the direction of a humanized world, then space must be given to these attempts, to these efforts.