Making Peace Visible – Details, episodes & analysis

Public funding for peace efforts took a massive hit with the gutting of USAID last year, and other donor countries have ramped down aid as well, in a world that feels increasingly less safe for many. That’s why our ears perked up when we heard about Brian Abrams, an American venture capitalist who is investing in technology to find solutions to violent conflict. 

In the new field of ‘peace tech,’ companies are using AI to predict the likelihood of major events – like military invasions or popular uprisings, and modeling how to prevent violence before it starts. With their ability to process massive data sets from intelligence, journalism and other sources, these tools can also quickly gain insights on what’s driving conflicts on a population level. Important tools for governments and mediators, they also appeal to corporations working around the world – customers who Abrams hopes will bring in revenue to sustain the peace tech sector. And as you’ll hear, he’s very optimistic. 

Brian Abrams founded B Ventures Group, a venture capital firm for peace tech, in 2023. Prior to that he was president of Ibex Investors and a managing partner at Row Capital. 

Connect with Brian Abrams on LinkedIn. 

Learn more about the peace tech companies discussed in this episode: 

Anadyr Horizon

From Business Insider: Inside the Billion-Dollar War over Peace Tech

Transcend AI

CulturePulse

odr.com

ABOUT THE SHOW

 The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org

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It’s hard to keep up with the number of unprecedented actions the second Trump administration has taken, but what happened on January 3 – when the US military extracted Venezuela’s president and first lady amidst an aerial assault on Caracas – is impossible to ignore. Also seemingly overnight the U.S. government’s narrative on why they were taking action against Venezuela changed – from interdicting the drug trade to restoring the country’s oil sector. 

In this special episode, we look at the many narratives surrounding the U.S. action in Venezuela, and separate fact from fiction. We also discuss what this power shift means for Venezuelans, who have been living under a repressive regime, and a longrunning economic crisis. Our guest is Enrique Roig, an international relations expert whose career has spanned government, NGOs and the private sector, and more than 40 countries. Roig has more than two decades of experience in diplomacy, development and human rights, including extensive experience in Central and South America. He’s testified before Congress about human rights abuses committed by the Maduro regime.

Roig served in the State Department during the Biden administration, as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Currently the Vice President for External Affairs at Human Rights First, he writes about Venezuela and U.S. foreign policy on Substack at Enrique Roig - Unleashed. 

LEARN MORE

Enrique Roig’s Substack

On human rights in Venezuela from Human Rights Watch

On journalism in Venezuela and the diaspora: 

How Venezuelan journalists broke the information blockade with a 10-hour broadcast of Maduro’s ouster

Listen: MPV’s episode with Caracas-based journalist Tony Frangie Mawad:

Journalism under authoritarianism: An indie reporter persists in Venezuela

ABOUT THE SHOW

 The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org

Support our work

Connect on social:

Instagram @makingpeacevisible

LinkedIn @makingpeacevisible

Bluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social

We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show! 

This episode comes to us from independent journalist Scott Gurian. 

In the Nørrebro neighborhood of Copenhagen, there's a small building with a garden and wooden seats. At first glance, it looks like some sort of neighborhood cafe, but it's actually the Menneskebiblioteket or Human Library, where the "readers" and "books" are people having deeply personal and intimate conversations about topics that might normally be considered off-limits or taboo in polite society. The library is staffed by volunteers whose life stories and experiences mean they face some sort of stigma, whether it be due to their ethnicity, religion, orientation, occupation, disability, or social status.

Gurian visited the Human Library and produced this episode for his award-winning documentary-style travel and culture podcast Far from Home. 

Since its beginning in Denmark, the Human Library concept has now spread to more than 80 countries on 6 continents. You can visit the library's Facebook page to find out about upcoming library events near you.

Find all four seasons of Far from Home where ever you listen to podcasts. 

ABOUT THE SHOW

 The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org

Support our work

Connect on social:

Instagram @makingpeacevisible

LinkedIn @makingpeacevisible

Bluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social

We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show! 

Peace negotiations and reconciliation processes can change the world – but they’re not much to look at. The shortage of compelling images is one of many challenges to making peace more tangible in our very visual world.  

But if  we expand the concept of peace to include what peace actually means to people who have lived through conflict, then what peace looks like can be expansive. Like a portrait of a family reunited after a war. Or something unexpected, like a photo of a man walking on stilts through a refugee camp, entertaining a host of children.  

Our guests this episode are Tiffany Fairey, a Senior Research Fellow based at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, and Ingrid Guyon, a photographer and participatory visual media practitioner. They’ve both spent over 15 years working around the world helping communities affected by conflict to tell their own stories through photography.  

Fairey and Guyon are co-authors of Peace Photography: A Guide, which presents a methodology and approach that celebrates peace efforts and encourages creativity, drawing on projects in 21 countries. Fairey’s upcoming book Imaging Peace: How People Use Photography to Resist Violence, Transform Conflict, and Build Connection will be out this autumn from Edinburgh University Press.  

To view the images discussed in this episode, go to makingpeacevisible.org/podcast.  

LEARN MORE

Download a free copy of the guide in English, Spanish or French; browse peace photography projects, explore Fairey’s research, and more at imagingpeace.org.  

Follow the Imaging Peace project on Instagram @imaging_peace.

Read Tiffany Fairey’s essay on the Everyday Peace Indicators project in Colombia in The Conversation  

Read Ingrid Guyon’s blog post for Beyond Skin on visiting Belfast as a peace photographer

ABOUT THE SHOW

 The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org

Support our work

Connect on social:

Instagram @makingpeacevisible

LinkedIn @makingpeacevisible

Bluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social

We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show! 

Think about the infrastructure that makes your community tick. Roads, schools, buses and trains, parks and playgrounds, the sewage treatment plant are probably the kind of things that first come to mind. But what about local news?

Our guest this episode, journalism scholar Jennifer  Henrichsen, says local newspapers, news webistes, and TV and radio stations are a necessary part of public infrastructure too.

Local news journalists play crucial roles in times of crises, like wildfires and floods. They also play a less visible watchdog role in keeping local governments accountable. And even less visible -- there's evidence that the erosion and closure of local news outlets is contributing to increasing polarization.

Jennifer Henrichsen is an Assistant Professor at the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University. She's also the research director of the Washington Local News Ecosystem Project -- a publicly-funded initiative to measure the health of local news around the state. Washington State University is using the data collected by Henrichsen's team to help match up young reporters with newsrooms that need them.

ABOUT THE SHOW

 The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org

Support our work

Connect on social:

Instagram @makingpeacevisible

LinkedIn @makingpeacevisible

Bluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social

We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show! 

This podcast is a project of Making Peace Visible, is a small 501(c)3 nonprofit organization based in Somerville, Massachusetts. What we do is unique -- consistently analyzing how the media covers conflict, and amplifying stories of resolution and reconciliation that are often ignored by the mainstream media.  

In the month of July, we're working to raise $40,000 to continue and grow this work. With your help, we can fund journalists producing rigorous, underreported stories of conflict transformation through the Making Peace Visible story awards, and convene strategic gatherings of peacebuilders and journalists to shift how stories get told. Your donation also keeps this podcast going and helps us reach more listeners. Make a one-time or recuring gift at makingpeacevisible.org/donate. 

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When Pope Leo XIV addressed over a thousand journalists at the Vatican just days after his ordination, his message was both striking and urgent: “Let us disarm words, and we will help disarm the world.” In a time of escalating global conflict and diminishing trust in institutions, the new pope placed moral responsibility on the media: to move away from aggression and polarization and toward communication that fosters understanding and peace.

In this episode, we hear from Miguel Díaz, 9th U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See (under President Barack Obama), and Elizabeth Hume, Executive Director of the Alliance for Peacebuilding. Drawing from their respective fields—diplomacy and international peacebuilding—they reflect on the broader implications of Pope Leo’s message, particularly the role that religious institutions like the Vatican can play in addressing global division, violence, and institutional fragility.

Díaz offers context on the Vatican’s long-standing diplomatic role. He describes how Pope Leo’s formation in both the U.S. and Latin America, along with his theological grounding in justice and bridge-building, may inform his priorities as pontiff. Hume brings a sobering view from the peacebuilding field, where violent conflict is on the rise and support for prevention is declining. Together, they examine how the Catholic Church, under Pope Leo, might offer renewed institutional leadership in a world in search of stability.

Further Reading: 

Pope Leo’s address to journalists, May 12, 2025 (English translation):
https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/speeches/2025/may/documents/20250512-media.html

NYT coverage of Pope Leo’s address to the media:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/world/europe/pope-leo-vatican-journalists.html

‘The pope is Peruvian!’ How 2 decades in South America shaped the vision of Pope Leo XIV:
https://theconversation.com/the-pope-is-peruvian-how-2-decades-in-south-america-shaped-the-vision-of-pope-leo-xiv-256415

Maria Ressa’s speech at the Vatican on January 25, 2025: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0kHvIeYN5M&t=12s

ABOUT THE SHOW

 The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org

Support our work

Connect on social:

Instagram @makingpeacevisible

LinkedIn @makingpeacevisible

Bluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social

We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show! 

This podcast is a project of Making Peace Visible, is a small 501(c)3 nonprofit organization based in Somerville, Massachusetts. What we do is unique -- consistently analyzing how the media covers conflict, and amplifying stories of resolution and reconciliation that are often ignored by the mainstream media.  

In the month of July, we're working to raise $40,000 to continue and grow this work. With your help, we can fund journalists producing rigorous, underreported stories of conflict transformation through the Making Peace Visible story awards, and convene strategic gatherings of peacebuilders and journalists to shift how stories get told. Your donation also keeps this podcast going and helps us reach more listeners. Make a one-time or recuring gift at makingpeacevisible.org/donate. 

Our guest this episode is Terrell Jermaine Starr, an independent journalist based in Ukraine. His work focuses on interconnection: how Ukrainian politics and society relates to the rest of the world, especially the United States, Europe, and Africa. In the early days of Russia's full-scale invasion, Starr gained international attention for his up-close-and-personal reporting style, and for helping vulnerable Ukrainians flee the country. And, for being a rare Black American reporter on the ground.  

On Starr's podcast, Black Diplomats, and his Substack blog, Terrell provides reporting and analysis on politics in the Ukraine, the United States, and beyond. He pays special attention to equity and discrimination, drawing parallels between Putinism and the MAGA movement in the United States.  Terrel is also a contributor to Foreign Policy magazine, the Washington Post, and MSNBC.

MPV digital media producer Andrea Muraskin sat down with Terrell Jermaine Starr on July 3, 2025, just days after his home city of Kyiv was bombarded by Russian missiles and drones.

Follow him on X @terrelljstarr

ABOUT THE SHOW

 The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org

Support our work

Connect on social:

Instagram @makingpeacevisible

LinkedIn @makingpeacevisible

Bluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social

We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show! 

In hopes of learning from the past and In light of US missile strikes on Iranian nuclear sites and subsequent retaliation in an escalating regional conflict, we're revisiting one of our best episodes on how Western media covers war.

Guest Bette Dam is a Dutch journalist who covered the war in Afghanistan for 15 years. She began her coverage in 2006, embedded with the Dutch military. She’s the author of two books: Looking for the Enemy, Mullah Omar and the Unknown Taliban, and A Man in a Motorcycle, How Hamid Karzai Came to Power. 

In the course of her reporting Dam realized that most Western journalists were providing a distorted view of the war. It left out the perspective of the Afghan people, and made the country appear more dangerous than it really was. And Dam says the press missed opportunities to hold the U.S. and NATO to account for major blunders – including largely overlooking the fact that the Taliban surrendered in December 2001. 

This interview was recorded in October 2023.

In 2024, Dam completed a PhD at the Vrije Universiteit in Brussels on the role of Western media in conflict, where she now serves on the faculty. In February 2025 she launched UNHEARD in partnership with the Tow Center at the Columbia School of Journalism, a project that aims to help news organizations reveal potentially overlooked narratives by using AI to audit who is quoted in their articles. 

**Copy this link to share this episode anywhere**

MORE FROM BETTE DAM

TEDx talk: The shortcomings of war reporting

Follow Bette on X (formerly Twitter)

Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions, Zero V, and Doyeq. 

ABOUT THE SHOW

 The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org

Support our work

Connect on social:

Instagram @makingpeacevisible

LinkedIn @makingpeacevisible

Bluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social

We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show! 

In the United States, about one sixth of the federal budget goes to defense.  Why are many Americans so passive in the face of the massive expenditures for defense that crowd out spending on human needs like education, healthcare and infrastructure? Why does much of the media accept the status quo? And is all of this spending making Americans and the world any safer?

Our guest helping tackle these questions is anthropologist Stephanie Savell. Savell is the Co-Director of Costs of War at Brown University, an interdisciplinary research project focused on the impact of the post 9/11 wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and beyond; the U.S. global military footprint; and the domestic effects of US military spending. Savell's own research highlights US military involvement around the world, most notably in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. In many of these places, American assistance has served to fuel existing conflicts, and provided governments with tools and justification to target Muslim populations. But, Savell says, it doesn’t have to be this way. 

This episide was originally published in December 2023.

MORE FROM COSTS OF WAR

Stephanie Savell’s map of US counterterrorism operations 2021-2023

The Costs of United States’ Post-9/11 “Security Assistance”: How Counterterrorism Intensified Conflict in Burkina Faso and Around the World by Stephanie Savell 

Why Media Conflation of Activism with Terrorism Has Dire Consequences: The Case of Cop City by Deepa Kumar

ABOUT THE SHOW

 The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org

Support our work

Connect on social:

Instagram @makingpeacevisible

LinkedIn @makingpeacevisible

Bluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social

We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show! 

“Humans are not rational beings with emotions. In fact, we're just the opposite. We're emotionally based beings who can only think rationally when we feel that our identities, as we see them, are understood and valued by others.”

Those words from neuroscientist Bob Deutch triggered a lightbulb moment in the mind of Tim Phillips, a veteran peacebuilder and educator.  Over the past twelve years, Phillips has worked with neuroscientists and psychologists to integrate brain science into research and practice at Beyond Conflict, the peacebuilding organization that he founded in 1991 and where he serves as CEO. 

In this conversation, we focus on Beyond Conflict’s research on dehumanization. If you perceive another person or group as less than human, it’s much easier to justify violence against that group or person. Dehumanizing rhetoric – like describing people as animals or vermin – is often a precursor to violence.  

But Phillips says if we can identify signs of dehumanization early on, we can make changes to decrease the likelihood of violent conflict. Phillips and host Jamil Simon also discuss the difference between fear and disgust – both motivators of conflict that are each processed differently in the brain and require different interventions. Plus, how Beyond Conflict has applied this research to create media interventions in Nigeria and the United States. And, how journalists can utilize knowledge of how the brain works to reach more people and avoid incitement. 

This episode was originally published in April 2024.

LEARN MORE

Watch the video “America’s Divided Mind” by Beyond Conflict

Read key takeaways from Beyond Conflict’s research on dehumanization

Read Beyond Conflict’s Decoding Dehumanization policy brief 

Listen to our episode with psychologist Donna Hicks: “Dignity: A new way to look at conflict”

Watch “How to Grow Peace Journalism” webinars from the George Washington University Media and Peacebuilding Project. Presentations from Making Peace Visible host Jamil Simon, education director Steven Youngblood, and  producer Andrea Muraskin in this video.

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ABOUT THE SHOW

 The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org

Support our work

Connect on social:

Instagram @makingpeacevisible

LinkedIn @makingpeacevisible

Bluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social

We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show!