Graduation Day – Master’s in Journalism 2023–2025, Università Cattolica, Milan
On Saturday, February 28, 2026, at 9:30 a.m., the Aula Pio XI at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Largo Gemelli 1, Milan) will host the event “Mediating Peace in Times of War. The Role of Journalism,” organized by the Master’s program in Print, Broadcast, and Multimedia Journalism of ALMED (Alta Scuola in Comunicazione e Spettacolo).
The event coincides with the Graduation Day of the 2023–2025 cohort and offers a public forum to reflect on a pressing question: what space remains for peace in a new global order marked by armed conflicts, geopolitical tensions, and the erosion of long-standing international norms?
A Changing Global Paradigm
The current international landscape appears increasingly distant from values once widely shared within the community of nations: respect for international law, nuclear non-proliferation treaties, and commitments to arms reduction. The word “peace” is frequently invoked in public discourse, yet it is often reduced to the mere absence of open warfare or to top-down ceasefires driven by economic and strategic interests.
Within this context, the central question of the conference emerges: what role can—and should—journalism play? And who, if anyone, are today’s peace mediators?
Journalism as a Space of Mediation
The event will open with remarks by Marco Lombardi, Director of the Master’s program, and Nicoletta Vittadini, Deputy Director, both faculty members at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.
Speakers include leading journalists, scholars, and communication professionals engaged in reporting on conflicts and peace processes. Among them: reporter Laura Silvia Battaglia, host on Rai Radio3 and editorial director of the Master’s news outlets; Tatiana Dordevic, President of the Associazione Stampa Estera Milano; Barbara Setti, Head of Research at the Fondazione Finanza Etica; journalist and author Elena Pasquini, whose book La meccanica della pace explores the mechanisms of peacebuilding; and illustrator Gianluca Costantini, professor of “Comics Languages” at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna, known for his long-standing engagement with human rights through drawing.
The diversity of perspectives highlights journalism not merely as a profession of storytelling, but as a public responsibility. Choosing sources carefully, verifying information, resisting propaganda, and amplifying the voices of victims and mediators are all ways in which journalism can help create the cultural conditions necessary for peace.
Reporting Peace, Not Only War
One of the central themes of the discussion will be the relationship between information and consensus-building. War often generates binary narratives—friends versus enemies, winners versus losers. Journalism, however, has the potential to restore complexity, to document attempts at dialogue, and to shed light on the often invisible work of mediators and civil society actors.
In this sense, visual and artistic language—such as Costantini’s work—also becomes part of a broader communicative effort that goes beyond reporting events to engaging public conscience.
Graduation and “Stories that Matter” Award
The conference will conclude with the awarding of diplomas to the graduates of the 2023–2025 Master’s cohort and the presentation of the “Stories that Matter” prize, promoted by the Fondazione Finanza Etica and the Associazione Stampa Estera Milano.
The award recognizes journalistic work that combines professional rigor with social impact, reaffirming the idea that journalism can still make a difference when it chooses to tell stories that truly matter—stories that question, illuminate, and build awareness.
At a time when peace often appears fragile and reduced to rhetoric, the February 28 gathering invites a reconsideration of journalism as a form of mediation: not neutral detachment, but a committed search for truth, dialogue, and human dignity.
