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Colombia: The Media and the Peace
the Dawn News / Friday 14 April 2017
 

The media coverage of the peace agreement between the FARC-EP and the government evidences that journalism is not politically nor pedagogically ready to take on the task of informing on this event to the country.

For Mario Morales, member of the media observatory of the Javeriana University: “ Journalists of the several media outlets were not prepared to deliver journalism that is at the service of the peace process and of the agreements signed by the insurgency and the government, since they look at the issue through the lens of war”.

“Colombia’s nation-wide media outlets have defamed the process with sensationalism and sexism and gave an officialist look to the news related to the Peace agreements” Morales states. This practice has also extended to regional and local media who, in one way or another, use Colombian media as sources.

Nation-wide media outlets are the ones that have the ability to travel and get to the direct sources of information, however, their practices are not the best because they respond to private interests instead of the people’s best interest. These media outlets belong to four economic forces: the Luis Carlos Sarmiento Angulo Organization, the Ardila Lulle Organization, the Olympic Radio Organization and Valorem. All of them have particular interests and distort information in their favor.

There are other credible and reliable information sources, such as the organizations of the communities itselves. These are the primary sources that must be taken into account by journalism that roots for the Peace process. These are the voices that should be heard and disseminated.

According to Morales; “if media gives a voice to Social Organizations, members of the insurgency, victims, Joints of Communal Action, among other organizations and sectors, it will allow to create a new country and democracy”. This perspective will enable to find mechanisms to legitimate a peace process in which all voices are heard.

A negative practice journalism is the sustained attack to discredit voices that don’t align themselves with the official story (the one promoted by the government). This is journalism for war, not for peace. A clear case are be the accusations made by the Silla Vacía to the Colombian Political and Social Movement of the Center East of Colombia.

Source: Trochando sin Fronteras / The Dawn News / April 12, 2017