#OwnTheMedia: Positive News Becomes Global Media Cooperative

Positive News Editor-in-Chief Sean Dagan Wood and Journalist Danielle Batist

Positive News started on a kitchen table in a farm tucked away in rural Shropshire some 22 years ago.  It is the world’s leading and longest-established publication dedicated to positive and solution-focused journalism. A magazine writing about kindness, cooperation, creativity and innovation - a breath of fresh air in a media where news too often means problems, conflicts, wars, crimes, tragedy: the old  “if it bleeds, it leads” approach.

The publication is now based in London, has a circulation of 60,000, a strong social media presence, and its construtive approach is increasingly attracting interest from other media.

The idea that news has to be something that’s broken is slowly being questioned by media outlets all over the world – and not just by alternative media.  Mainstream media like the New York Times, the Huffington Post, Al Jazeera and many more are experimenting with solution-focused sections and a more balanced news agenda.

Studies have shown that news with a negative bias tend to leave audiences feeling powerless, bored, frustrated, disengaged and less likely to get involved or contribute financially. The opposite is true for news with a more positive slant.   This does matter: journalists say they need to report on what’s happening in the world - and too bad if it makes people feel bad, and I tend to agree. But journalists are not doing their job if they produce switched-off, disengaged citizens.

As Positive News has pioneered a more positive form of journalism, it is now pioneering a new way to finance and run a media business. It needs to innovate to become sustainable and to meet the growing demand for its journalism, so it is becoming the first crowdfunded global media cooperative, owned by their readers and journalists. 

Positive News editor-in-chief, Seán Dagan Wood, said: “We’re seeing a growing public demand for our journalism, as well as increasing interest in our approach from other media. Cooperative ownership is the perfect way forward to raise investment while protecting our ethos.”

They launched their #OwnTheMedia crowdfunding campaign at Nesta yesterday to reach the £200,000 they need to secure and grow the organisation. Amazingly, the campaign has already reached £68,800, last time I looked, and new investments are coming in all the time.

 The funding will help Positive News expand their core team, develop their new website, relaunch their print publication into a magazine and build the audience and the income streams that will help sustain them in the long-term.

I’ve written for Positive News for a few years and love what they do and stand for.

If you want to join a community of people with shared values and be part of the first crowdfunded global media co-operative, please join the #OwnTheMediacampaign

Word on the Street: homeless people tell their stories

“I speak several languages”, 

“I was a heroin addict”,

“I feel reborn”,

“I was sent to prison at 17”,

“I went to university”…

I had asked the eight people sitting around the table to share a piece of interesting information about themselves – something that people walking by them on the street wouldn’t know. 

They were five men and three women – all homeless - with very diverse life experiences and backgrounds, and amazing stories to tell. Like most homeless persons I had worked with before, many had a “normal”, even promising life before something sent them off course: the death of a loved one, an accident or illness, a drug or alcohol habit, the end of a relationship, the loss of a job. 

They had come to the office of Poached Creative, a social enterprise communication agency in Hackney, London, to learn how to tell their own stories, so that they could publish them in the Pavement, a free print and online magazine packed with news, stories, cartoons and useful information for homeless readers. 

During the workshop, we discussed the power of stories, what to share and what to leave out, storytelling tools and what makes a good story. We talked about structure and style – using your own voice, painting pictures, using details and showing instead of telling.  Instead of covering their whole life, we decided to focus on one telling event that said something bigger, on people they have met, places they have been, dreams and struggles.

I used various prompts to help them think about their lives, including sharing an interesting fact about themselves. I got the idea watching a moving video featuring homeless people in Orlando, Florida, telling their “cardboard stories.”

I haven’t seen their final stories yet, but previous contributors to the Pavement wrote about their life “before” or the event that lead them to become homeless. One wrote about how miserable it is to be ill on the streets, where you cannot get warm and the police moves you all the time; others described with humour a night in a hostel or a meal in a soup kitchen.

The Storytelling workshop is part of the Pavement’s Word on the Street project aimed to help homeless people to contribute as fully as possible to the magazine.  For three months, they are given training in everything from interviewing and photojournalism to storytelling and computer skills, lead by professional journalists. The project is managed by Poached Creative, a fantastic social enterprise training and working with disadvantaged people on various creative communication projects.  

Mediterranean Migrant Crisis: Don't Let Them Drown

Amnesty International picture

 This month, more than 1,000 women, men and children drowned in one week as several overcrowded boats sank in the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas.
It is the equivalent of five passenger planes full of people.  If they had been holiday makers, instead of migrants, imagine the response. 

And that might be just a start. In previous years, the warmer weather has marked the start of ‘boat season’ – when thousands of desperate people embark on the treacherous journey to Europe. Even before the tragic events this month, 50 times as many people died since the beginning of 2015, compared to the same period last year. And even more people are expected to attempt this dangerous trip this summer, particularly as the violence persists in Libya, to where many Syrians escaping the conflict have fled.
 
Women, men and children leave their homes, risking death, exploitation and starvation along the way, to board over-crowded, unseaworthy and often crewless boats, having paid all they have or can borrow to people smugglers.
Many die. Many lose their loved ones or become separated from them.

 

Here is Kate Allen, 
Amnesty International UK director's account of her visit to Lampedusa: 

"I’ve just returned from meeting with shipwreck survivors, coastguards and officials in Lampedusa – the Italian island on the frontline of the crisis in the Mediterranean Sea.

It was incredibly harrowing but, as always, I was truly touched by the bravery of those I met.

People like the 19-year-old woman who told me that her mother was killed while they were trying to escape Boko Haram.

She then met a man who took her to Libya and prostituted her. She told me how she had to run for her life to get away from him, and about the discrimination and violence directed at black Africans in Libya.

I spent one morning with the head of the local hospital, who told me that he and his small team examine all arrivals, dead and alive. He talked about his experiences, from joyful reunions between mothers and their children, to examining a young girl in a body bag to find she was actually still alive and managing to resuscitate her. She now lives in Sweden.

He had many, many heart-wrenching stories and I struggled not to cry.

On the ground, amongst the people who are actually helping, I didn’t hear a bad word directed at the migrants and refugees. Their resentment is against the international community.

Speaking to the mayor of Lampedusa, she told me: ‘We can’t condemn people to die because they are black. We don’t let people drown.’

The number of people making this journey really isn’t huge – as long as the rest of Europe would only play its part."

At the recent emergency summit in Brussels, EU leaders pledged to triple funding for rescue operations in the Mediterranean. The EU will also look at ways to capture and destroy smugglers' boats and deploy immigration officers to non-EU countries, officials said. But Amnesty International says  they have not gone far enough and urge the UK government and its European Union partners to strengthen search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas through a joint effort involving all EU countries here. You can sign their petition here. 

But even if naval operations manage to rescue the vast majority, there are bitter disputes about how to deal with the tens of thousands who make it to safety. Britain, for example, has said it will provide significant naval support, but it won't accept more asylum seekers. 

Some people in southern Europe say that's not enough. The burden has to be more equitably shared. There should be a common asylum and immigration policy within the EU. But as different countries have very different priorities, it  will take years to get the balance right and achieve a common policy. 

Survivors of war and torture united by music - Stone Flowers

Stone Flowers members/courtesy of Stone Flowers

 
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Stone Flowers – a musical group comprised of war and torture survivors – is releasing its new album Ngunda, proving that something beautiful can come out of unimaginable violence.

I liked working on this story because Stone Flowers is more than the sum of its parts: it is a music group, producing beautiful, uplifting music, but it is also a therapeutic and political project. Members have experienced torture and terrible losses - of home, family, culture and even of the person they were before. They write about these difficult topics, along with hope and resilience, in the languages and rhythms of their home countries, which include Iran, Kuwait, Sri Lanka, Sudan and DRC.  

Music helps reduce the trauma and gives survivors a way of speaking out against human rights abuses.  It also allows a connection with home and a more positive association with the loss of that home.

 As Stone Flowers members all bring their own musical heritages to the process, the result is rich and unusual - a cornucopia of styles and influences, where Arabic poetry mixed with West African rhythms and English folk segued into Caribbean and Tamil songs.

The name of the group, Stone Flowers, comes from a Persian folk song the group performed for their first album.  They liked the name because it evokes both strength and fragility, and also because it had Manchester overtones (i.e. Stone Roses), where the group is based. 

Created four years ago, Stone Flowers is supported by the charities Musicians without Borders UK and Freedom from Torture North West.  The group is performing life at many events and is now recording a new album, ‘Ngunda’, which will be launched at Amnesty International HQ in London on June 5.  The album takes its name from one of the ten tracks: Ngunda Azali Mutu, meaning 'A refugee is a human being' in the Bantu language Lingala.

 

Here is the story I wrote for Positive News.

Turn the Lights Back on in Syria: fourth year of conflict

This Sunday, March 15, marks the fourth anniversary of the start of the bloody conflict in Syria.  I wanted to share “Afraid of the Dark”, a short video reminding people that the conflict is still going on and showing one of its repercussions.

Since the start of the war,  83% of all the lights in Syria have literally gone out. Analysing satellite images, scientists based at Wuhan University in China, in co-operation with the #withSyria coalition of 130 non-governmental organisations, have shown that the number of lights visible over Syria at night has fallen by 83% since March 2011. In cities like Aleppo, the situation is even more extreme – satellite images show that 97 percent of lights have gone out since 2011.

The video makers - BAFTA-winning agency Don’t Panic and production partners UNIT9 – wanted to use this little-thought off repercussion of the conflict as a symbol of the darkness and chaos in which the country has been plunged already four years ago.  Over 200,000 people have died and millions more have been forced to flee their homes.

Four years since the start of the crisis, tell world leaders that they must stand by Syrians

"It is a literal truth that 83% of Syria's lights have gone out since the start of the war," said Richard Beer, Creative Director of Don't Panic, "but the darkness that afflicts them has a metaphorical truth that goes deeper. We wanted to use this shocking statistic to tell the story of just how far Syria has fallen into darkness, in every conceivable way, despite UN resolutions and international outcry. The hero of our film, Khalid, could afford to be afraid of the dark four years ago; now he faces far worse every day, despite his own bravery. He, and all Syrians like him, need our help."

Directed by UNIT9’s Greg&Jacob, this video is part of an international campaign launched by the #withSyria coalition. The coalition is a movement of humanitarian and human rights organisations from around the world, including Oxfam, Amnesty, International Rescue Committee, and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), standing in solidarity with those caught in the conflict.

The #withSyria coalition launched this video alongside a global petition, calling on world leaders to ‘turn the lights back on in Syria’ by:

•           Prioritising a political solution with human rights at its heart;

•           Boosting the humanitarian response both for those inside Syria and refugees, including through increased resettlement;

•           Insisting that all parties put an end to attacks on civilians and stop blocking aid

A new report 'Failing Syria' released today by 21 humanitarian and human rights organisations accuses warring parties and powerful states of failing to achieve what three 2014 UN Security Council resolutions set out to do.