The Iron Horse to Bucharest, or, Trenul! I’ve always loved train travel, and thus jumped at the chance when I heard that I could take the train from Chisinau, Moldova, where I’m teaching on a Fulbright scholarship, to Bucharest, the capital of neighboring Romania.  Before I tell you about my experiences, I am requiring you, dear reader, to watch this catchy, highly entertaining music video filmed aboard the same train I took: As a semi-rational human, I knew the trip wouldn’t be like this video, but deep in the recesses of my calcified mind, I held out some hope that perhaps it might be ..read more

Bucharest students welcome prof with attention, sharp questions Too often, discussions in university classrooms are flat and colorless, and as a professor, it seems like you have to beg to get students to express anything more than a few tepid words. This was certainly not the case during my visit last week to the University of Bucharest (Romania). I loved it. I was respectfully challenged by a number of students in the two classes I visited, one undergraduate and the other master’s. The most pointed questioning was from a young woman extolling the virtues of ‘citizen journalism,’ and its prom ..read more

Fulbright Update I’m in Bucharest, Romania this week teaching at the University of Bucharest. I’ll have a full report in this space next week, so stay tuned. Webinars explore ‘How to Grow Peace Journalism’ I’ve been privileged to participate in and observe several excellent peace journalism webinars launched by the Media and Peacebuilding Project at the George Washington University. Their a webinar series, titled “How to Grow Peace Journalism,” was held over 6 weeks from Feb. 28 to April 3. I was honored to moderate the first webinar, “How to Grow Peace Journalism: Lessons from Peace Journali ..read more

Connecting with PJ fellow travelers in Montreal I recently finished a four-session peace journalism short course for what is one of the most unique and laudable media institutions in the world. La Converse, based in Montreal, Canada, is an online newspaper with a unique mission to provide “transparent and fair news coverage (which) means first and foremost that everyone’s stories are heard. Serving the community, our reporting is focused on providing information, but also proposing solutions and ideas that bridge the gaps in the issues we deal with,” according to their website. Founder and edi ..read more

The new Peace Journalist magazine is here! The April 2024 edition features stories from Moldova, Zimbabwe, Greece, Nepal, and elsewhere. We also offer a tribute to the PJ pioneer Dr. Johan Galtung, who recently passed away. You can read or download the magazine at: https://www.scribd.com/document/718881055/Peace-Journalist-Mag-April-2024 The next Peace Journalist will be published in October, with a copy deadline of early September. For submissions and other inquiries, please email me at steven.youngblood@fulbrightmail.org. For back issues of the magazine, as well as more information about the ..read more

Fulbright Update: Event features lively discussions, cross-boundary cooperation Since one key peace journalism tenet is building bridges between parties in conflict, I’ve often found myself teaching seminars in rooms full of journalists from India and Pakistan, or Abkhazia and Georgia, for example. Last week, in a peace journalism seminar at Vadul Lui Voda, Moldova, I found myself in a similar situation. The discussions between journalists from these conflicted regions got a bit heated at times, among the most contentious I’ve seen, although the animated discussions never descended into yellin ..read more

Fulbright Update: Media Academy convenes; State alumni event held This week, the Media Academy, a four day seminar introducing peace journalism to 31 Moldovan journalists, got underway at the resort area Vadul Lui Voda. The event is titled “Peace Journalism Principles and Applications,” and is sponsored by UN Human Rights’ office in Moldova. I am the project designer and lead instructor. We’re covering a lot of ground this week, from a PJ overview to PJ and refugees; PJ and human rights reporting; PJ and hate speech/disinformation, and PJ and war reporting. Eugenia Cretu presents at the ..read more

Fulbright Update: At university, discussions now focus on Ukrainian refugees I continue lecturing this semester at the State University of Moldova (USM), in the journalism department (they call departments faculties here). Our current focus is on how media report about Ukrainian refugees.  Peace Journalism lesson, Moldova State Univ. Last fall, I taught an introduction to peace journalism lesson, including definitions, characteristics, and so on. I had the students read stories and discuss whether they were written in the peace journalism style. This spring, I’m teaching an advan ..read more

Webinars spread word about peace journalism basics; PJ & war Even though I’m a Fulbright Scholar here in Moldova, my activities as director of the Center for Global Peace Journalism continue, including producing the Peace Journalist magazine (new issue in April!) and giving webinars to various groups around the world.  Dr. Uchenna Ekwo, at GMU event I presented at two such webinars last week. The first was a presentation for students at Hong Kong Baptist University. I introduced the concept of peace journalism, then discussed some questions that journalists and media consumer ..read more

Fulbright Update: Teacher, kids have fun in elementary school session Don’t tell, but I cheated on my fifth graders at Orizont Lyceum last week with kids from a different fifth grade class. (I've been a regular guest speaker at Orizont this academic year). This time, I visited Vasile Alecsandri Lyceum in Chisinau at the request of my colleague Nadine Gogu from the Independent Journalism Center. I was told beforehand that the kids would only know a little English, so I came prepared with slides in Romanian, and expected to speak mostly Romanian myself. My colleague and I were pleasantly surpr ..read more