During the 2014 Ferguson, Missouri riots in the U.S. after the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown, only one news presenter bothered to ask a protester why they were burning down their own buildings.

Benn Swann (pictured above), founder of the Truth In Media project, believes that many media outlets are not interested in telling the truth, and are too guided by business and political interests behind the scenes.

Picking on mostly controversial topics, the two-time Emmy Award winner believes in digging deep and asking uncomfortable questions. He believes that journalism in its purest form is a higher calling and at its worst is nothing more than propaganda and a distraction for the masses.

He’s been a reporter, photographer, bureau chief and anchor for KFOX-TV, Fox 19 News and RT. Now an independent news reporter, Swann has adopted social media and online video, including Netflix and Hulu, to get his message out. His 10 million views in 140 countries indicate there must be some truth in what he does. He spoke to us about what is wrong with the news and how it’s being reinvented.

Is Internet broadcasting the future of news?

Absolutely, I don’t think it’s the future of just news; it’s the future of all media. Eventually we’re going to see a convergence of television and cinema. I think most of the traditional TV broadcast news stations around the U.S. realize that’s happening as they’re watching their viewer numbers drop every year. Cable news knows it’s happening; they haven’t seen growth in around 12 years. No one’s really sure about what it will become over time, though.

Because of the acquisition of so many different media types and their bundling into just one or two corporations, I think there’s a danger of seeing online media becoming limited. We’re going to see some major shifts around who’s posting content and how viewers, listeners and readers are able to access that content. The future of the Internet is very unclear and might unfortunately become what the big media companies decide to do in this space.

Social media has a huge influence on how we receive our news. How are you approaching social media in a unique way?

In the past, media outlets essentially created content with a shotgun approach to try and hit as many people as possible that might be interested. With social media, you can target groups of people who have already expressed interest in certain subjects, and in very specific geographic areas.

To what extent should governments and large corporations dictate what we hear and see?

It’s more a question of what you do about the fact that they do control what we hear and see. I don’t have a problem with governments putting information out to people because governments also have a point of view and access to information that the rest of us don’t have. My issue is when there is collusion between governments and media organizations to frame or shape a story. Throughout history, governments have engaged in some form of propaganda but that doesn’t mean it’s always a bad thing. Unfortunately the term suggests that it’s all negative but it’s not always bad when a government expresses itself or tries to inform the public about something.

Are the people who foot the bill the people who dictate the agenda of the news we hear? What alternatives are there?

We have sponsors who pay for some of the work we do and I have no problem with that. Someone has to pay for all of it, whether it’s a government, corporation or advertiser who places its products on your channel. They obviously have a focused point of view that protects and builds their brand. For example, an apparel company is not going to pay to create content around sweatshops that may be associated with them, so the challenge for media outlets is how independent they’re prepared to be.

A solution is to have transparency about who owns news corporations, who is connected to these media entities and the influence they have.

When you do a story, how do you approach it in a way that is as open-minded and balanced as possible?

Many times you hear people use the word balance. Fox News is responsible for how many Americans use this word because they see “balanced” as getting someone from the left and someone from the right and hearing both sides of the story. Both sides of the story is a disingenuous phrase because it indicates that there are only two sides to a story when virtually every story has multiple sides.

We have a slogan “humanity is greater than politics” and with every story we do we look at how people are being affected. You can find 10 different individuals who are affected in 10 different ways and those are all truths. One is not more truthful than the other.

How do you choose your stories, what type of criteria do you use for that?

We don’t follow what other news channels are doing. We also look at bringing clarity to stories that we consider misrepresented because the story has become trapped in that left-right paradigm that I mentioned earlier. We believe strongly in activism but not necessarily for us to direct it, which some media platforms try and do. We’re not trying to control how people become activated; we just want them to become activated
in some way. 

What is your opinion on Julian Assange and the other whistleblowers that have exposed secure information? Is this treason or transparency?

I certainly don’t see it as treason. I believe that whistleblowers are some of the most important people in any society because their role should be to hold governments accountable. The problem is that there’s such a disconnect between the government and the citizenry and between the rights of the individual, media and government. This has resulted in most media treating whistleblowers as if they are terrible people or traitors. What Wikileaks did was open up an entire generation of people around the world to the idea that you don’t need gatekeepers in media to get information anymore.

How do you make this profitable? There’s so much free information available online – how do you turn this into a sustainable business model?

Part of the struggle is finding a foothold that becomes financially viable within the context of traditional channels of media. As much as we can micro-target and reach people easily online, one of the difficulties is finding advertisers who want to connect with it.

We’re connecting with some traditional media channels to raise our value online, because even though everything is shifting online, we’ve still got a long way to go before all the advertising dollars follow.

People have been trained to view traditional media as being more legitimate, even thought most people don’t watch or read it. If there’s a story that runs in The New York Times, it’s considered more legitimate than if it was found elsewhere. It’s a strange paradigm to try and break through.

Who inspires you?

U.S. lawyer, journalist and author Glenn Greenwald has done some great work on civil liberties. Despite hearing some negative personal things about Julian Assange of Wikileaks, I don’t think any of that matters. I think you need to look at the fact that he figured out a way that was bigger than himself to change the way people receive information. I’m very inspired by that.

World leaders one year ago agreed on an ambitious set of global goals designed to tackle the world’s most troubling problems such as extreme poverty and inequality by 2030 at the United Nations.

Described as a blueprint for the future, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with 169 targets address such daunting challenges as climate change, hunger, education, gender equality, sanitation, jobs, justice and shared peace.

We asked some participants about the progress of the goals one year in and what has worked and what has not:

Helen Dennis, Acting Head of Advocacy at Christian Aid:

“To date, SDG implementation is patchy. Some have embraced them – Norway is integrating the goals into its budget process. But global politics often seem to pull the wrong way. More people than ever are forcibly displaced, yet we see inertia in response to refugees. There are 700 million people living on less than $1.90 a day, yet countries cut aid budgets. There have been small steps towards tax justice but much more is needed. We now have a decent climate agreement but trillions still flow into fossil fuels. A year on, there is a pressing need for courage and leadership.”

David Nabarro, U.N. special adviser on 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

“My aim is for 2 billion people around the world to be aware of the SDGs by the end of 2017 and for another million people to become activists — to be change-agents who press decision-makers and who hold them accountable until we have transformed our world and made it more sustainable. Children and youth have a particularly important role to play, as the face of social movements, the drivers of social change and the torchbearers of a more sustainable future for generations to come.”

Amit Bouri, Chief Executive, Global Impact Investing Network:

“What will help us realize the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals of the U.N. is to more fully tap the power of the world’s investment capital. If sufficient investment capital can be channeled to these goal areas through impact investing, the SDGs are achievable.”

Joanna Rubinstein, Chief Executive and President, The World Childhood Foundation USA:

“The sexual abuse of children is a hidden public health crisis. At least one in 10 children in the world, 223 million, are affected. But, with the inclusion of a target in the new SDGs to end all forms of violence against children by 2030, world leaders can no longer close their eyes to this universal problem. We need new approaches to raise awareness about the problem of sexual abuse and the ways to address it.”

Mark Malloch-Brown, Chairman, Business & Sustainable Development Commission (BSDC):

“The challenge of how to scale up global development efforts to meet this ambitious agenda is becoming clearer. The levels of investment, entrepreneurship and innovation require that business joins in. There has been an inspiring number of businesses coming forward to contribute to achieving these 17 ambitious objectives for ending hunger and poverty, reducing inequality and tackling climate change. But most have not yet internalized the risks of inaction and continue to tip-toe around implementation.”

Paul Bissonnette, Action Plan Executor, Merit360, an international group of young leaders:

“I believe that for the SDGs to be achieved there will need to be cooperation and collaboration between the highly interconnected SDGs and among all nations. My passion is in the air we all breathe, but the problem is that we don’t all breathe the same air; for millions of people the air they breathe kills them. I am working on a project called SPARTAN which aims to employ satellites to measure global air pollution.”

Sara Enright, manager, BSR (Business for Social Responsibility):

“It is exciting to see leading companies incorporate SDG targets into their core business. Through developing products and services that address sustainability challenges, companies can make a positive impact on global development. Yet, this kind of social business innovation is far from the norm. Greater ambition and ownership is needed from the private sector to achieve the global goals.”

• Marc Dullaert, a successful businessman from Europe, witnesses a death in Africa and decides that he can no longer be a spectator to the world’s suffering.

• Moved by a 14-year-old’s campaign to stop child labor, he wonders why a child cannot win the Nobel Peace Prize.

•  A meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev results in the establishment of a peace price for children.

• Children make up half the world’s population, yet are seen as second class citizens. Dullaert has shown how winners of the Children’s Peace Prize can influence key adult change makers and global institutions of influence.

One morning on the border of Sierra Leone I was woken by an awful sound. It sounded like an animal in distress. I stepped outside and saw a mother from a nearby refugee camp holding her child that had passed away. I was filming documentaries for my television production company and our vehicle had broken down the day before, resulting in us sleeping on the passenger seats. It was an incident that was to change my life forever. Seeing that mother holding her dead child was like being struck by lightning and I knew that I had to do something. I phoned my wife as soon as I got a signal, she designed a logo and I came up with a name: KidsRights. We started with a small project to benefit Aids orphans in South Africa and then steadily added more. It resulted in me selling my business, a large production company that produced shows for 12 European countries, to enable me to focus entirely on building KidsRights.

In 2004 the Children’s Peace Prize was born. I watched the announcement of the new Nobel Peace Prize winner on the evening news one evening and shortly afterwards a documentary on an 11-year-old boy called Iqbal Masih from Pakistan. Masih had organised a protest rally with thousands of children to protest against working conditions within the tapestry industry, basically children working in sweat shops. I was so impressed that I asked myself, “Why can’t a child win the Nobel Peace Prize?” 

Chaeli Mycroft of South Africa won for her work to establish rights for children with disabilities. Behind her is fellow winner Malala Yousafzai.

I made contact with the Oslo Nobel Peace Prize Committee, who were very kind but said, “Sorry Mr. Dullaert our statutes are more than 100 years old and we will not change them. The Nobel Peace Prize is not for children.”

Then I heard about the yearly gathering of Nobel Peace Prize winners, chaired by the former president of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev. I managed to secure a ten-minute meeting and met him at the Gorbachev Foundation offices in Moscow.

I tried to explain to him my idea of an international children’s peace prize, but despite being friendly, he didn’t speak English and the translator wasn’t helping much either. Gorbachev sat looking at me unblinking. I was getting nowhere. Suddenly, in desperation, I asked, “Mr. Gorbachev, do you have grandchildren and do you think you could learn something from them?” It was an icebreaker. He suddenly became emotional and started talking about his daughter and grandchildren. After my short interview, I was sent outside to wait for his answer – 45 minutes in a cold corridor, like a punished school child. I was eventually summoned back into his office and Gorbachev said, “Yes, let’s do this.”

Marc Dullaert founded the first international peace prize for children.

The first International Children’s Peace Prize was launched at the 2005 peace summit in Rome and the first winner was South African Nkosi Johnson for his fight for the rights of children with HIV/AIDS. It was awarded to him posthumously as he had died of HIV/AIDS himself four years earlier at the age of 12. Ten years later, we now reach more than 1 billion people around the world when we acknowledge a child with a peace prize. The statuette they receive literally depicts a child moving the world because I strongly believe that children can be change makers. Sure, children are vulnerable, but they also harbor enormous strengths.

Winner Mayra Avellar Neves of Brazil, with founder Marc Dullaert (left) and Bono.

The Children’s Peace Prize provides a platform for children to voice their opinions and to inspire other children to bring about change. It can generate enormous impact. For example, Om Prakash Gurjar won his peace prize for freeing 500 children from slavery in India. He appeared on BBC news and when Gordon Brown, then U.K. minister of finance, visited India shortly after he requested a meeting. He was so impressed with Gurjar that he gave the Indian government £200 million to start eradicating child slavery and illiteracy. This demonstrates the power of a 14-year-old. After awarding the peace prize each year we can see the positive effects rippling out – it’s like throwing a stone into water.

However, exposure can also have a downside. In 2011 we got a handwritten letter from a schoolteacher in Pakistan, telling us about the remarkable story of a girl called Malala Yousafzai. She had stubbornly refused to stop her schooling, and despite being threatened by the Taliban, had continued advocating for girls education in a very public and courageous way. We wanted to award Malala the Children’s Peace Prize but were concerned for her safety, so we decided to nominate her instead – giving the prize that year to Chaeli Mycroft, a girl with a disability from South Africa.

The president of Pakistan was disappointed and he announced a few days later a National Peace Prize for Pakistan. It was awarded to Malala and she was thrust into the international limelight. The Taliban shot her a few months later. We could never have imagined that nominating her for a peace prize would trigger these series of events. The irony is that this tragic event led to her getting even wider exposure. She received the International Children’s Peace Prize in 2013 after all, and one year later received the renowned Nobel Peace Prize.

Om Prakash won the peace prize for combating child labor and liberating child slaves in India.

What’s become clear is that children who win the peace prize can positively influence key adult change-makers. In 2007, The Elders was formed – a group of international leaders working together for peace and human rights. We decided to create the youth equivalent – The Youngsters. One of our winners, Thandiwe Chama has addressed the United Nations on the upcoming Sustainable Development Goals. Baruani Ndume from Tanzania, has addressed world leaders on what it’s like to be a child refugee and victim of war. Our winners have become ambassadors for good.

Om Prakash receives his International Children’s Peace Prize from Nobel Peace Laureate FW de Klerk.

Children make up more than half the world’s population and are citizens of countries, despite being treated like second-class citizens. Many leaders and politicians pay lip service to children and jump at opportunities to have pictures taken with them, but they don’t take the time to listen to them. I’m not saying that young people know more than adults, just that they have a different view of the world. The least we can do is consult them when making laws or policies that directly affect them. One of my biggest eye-openers has been to see this happening more in Asia and Africa than in Europe – where it’s still very difficult to find real participation by children.

But, while children are capable of tackling tough social challenges and showing adults new ways of seeing the world, we still need to nurture an important ingredient of childhood – love. At one of our projects in India I once spoke to a boy who’d been freed from slavery. The kids were given a daily cooked meal and I said he must be very happy with that. He looked at me and said: “Of course I’m happy with one warm meal, but it’s more important to know that somebody cares for me.”