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.

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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

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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!