We are a team of journalists and peacebuilders who have witnessed firsthand how narratives can shatter societies. When they fuel polarization, hate, and division, they distort reality and make violence seem inevitable..

That couldn’t be further from the truth.

Across the world, peacebuilders are proving otherwise. In conflict zones, they work tirelessly with their communities to prevent violence, rebuild trust, and mend the social fabric. They carry with them a wealth of knowledge, tools, and stories that can inspire and guide others, both within and beyond the peacebuilding field.

Today, it’s more urgent than ever to share these insights.

Our information ecosystem is making peace harder to build. Polarized media and algorithm-driven platforms trap people in echo chambers, reinforcing stereotypes and leaving little room for dialogue or understanding.

It’s time for journalism to rise to the challenge, and to move beyond crisis reporting and offer a fuller, more inclusive picture of what’s really happening on the ground.

That’s what we’re here to do. And that’s what we’re committed to delivering.

“There is no one size fits all solution when it comes to peace.

That does not mean that it’s not very valuable for conflict actors and conflict contexts to learn from their peers.”

Theresa Breitmaier, Senior Project Manager Afghanistan and Central/South Asia Unit, Berghof Foundation

Our story

The Peacebuilders Circle story started in 2021, with a research and development initiative called Media for Peace (M4P).

M4P brought together a multidisciplinary team of researchers in communication studies, international relations, and computer science from the University of the Bundeswehr Munich, the University of Berlin, and the Freie Universität Berlin.

The project set out to explore how journalism can contribute to peacebuilding and the de-escalation of conflict. 

The team focused on two countries, Lebanon and Afghanistan, both grappling with conflict and post-conflict dynamics, but with vastly different media ecosystems, which allowed for comparative research.

With Media Lab Bayern as the implementation partner, the team mapped the media landscapes, conducted interviews with local journalists and peacebuilding experts, and unpacked the challenges that prevent media from supporting conflict transformation.

They found out that there is no real space for peacebuilding in the public discourse.
Public narratives are often shaped by dominant political actors who amplify division. Traditional media tends to echo these voices, reinforcing polarization rather than challenging it.

In short, peacebuilding is quiet work, and the media tends to favor loud voices.

Out of this realization, the team envisioned a two-part solution:

1. Create a space where peacebuilding voices can meet, exchange, and co-create.
2. Amplify those voices through thoughtful, constructive journalism.

This vision gave birth to The What If in January 2024. Its initial mission was to facilitate futures-thinking dialogues in Lebanon and Afghanistan and to publish long-form, solution-focused journalism based on those conversations.

Fast forward to today: In our conversations with peacebuilders, one message kept coming up: they need a platform to find inspiration, learn from best practices and connect with fellow peacebuilders. 

So we created a dedicated editorial platform for the global peacebuilding community in search for deeper understanding and inspiration.

Throughout, we remain committed to our vision: we thrive to transform conflict zones into hubs of understanding and inspiration. We envision a world where every voice contributes to a path to peace.

Will you join us in our journey?

Meet the team

Our editorial values

Transparency

We are open about how we work, who we work with, and what shapes our editorial decisions. Trust is fragile, and we aim to build it by being clear, accountable, and honest in everything we publish.

Inclusivity

Peace cannot be built by a few. We seek out voices that are often overlooked — across gender, ethnicity, class, geography, and ideology. Our storytelling reflects the diversity of those living through and transforming conflict.

Fairness

We aim to report with balance and integrity. Every story has many sides, and we commit to presenting them with accuracy, context, and care, especially when emotions run high and narratives are contested.

Empathy 

We approach every voice with empathy and curiosity, not judgment. Even in the most polarized environments, we believe empathy opens the door to understanding, which is the first step toward peace.

Constructive & Solutions-Focused

We shine a light on what’s working. Our reporting focuses on efforts to heal, connect, and rebuild. By showing what’s possible, we aim to inspire peacebuilders and decision-makers alike.

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How we use AI 

Let’s be honest : we all use AI these days.

As a small team of non-native English speakers with big ideas and limited resources, we’ve embraced AI as a tool to help us work more efficiently. But we also use it carefully, always putting human judgment first.

Here’s how we currently integrate AI into our editorial process:

Text & Writing

• Research Support
  We use AI to speed up background research,  but we always verify sources and double-check facts, as  the error rate remains high (A BBC study showed that 51% of all AI answers to questions about the news had significant issues of some form)
• Structuring Ideas
  All editors know the importance of a  good structure. We use AI as a sounding board to test different ways of organizing our stories and refining our writing flow.
• Editing Support
  As non-native English speakers,  we need help polishing our English. We use  AI to  assist us with grammar and spelling.
  

Visuals & Graphics

Peacebuilding is hard to visualize! So we use AI-generated visuals to illustrate complex ideas or highlight patterns from our reporting.

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No matter what we do, we start with humans, and we finish with humans. The ideas we bring you are ours, sourced among people on the ground that our journalists interviewed. And before anything is published, an editor reviews and approves the final piece.

Our commitment to you: 

We will always tell how we used AI in a piece.  

AI supports our work. But it doesn’t shape our ideas, and it never replaces the voices we’re here to amplify.