• Visit Common Ground News Blog
• Visit SFCG's YouTube channel

Search for Common Ground Launches the Common Ground News Blog and the SFCG YouTube Channel

This summer SFCG launched two exciting "new media" initiatives -- the Common Ground News Blog and the SFCG YouTube Channel. Increasingly, new media has been changing the communications and media landscape and so it is important that SFCG be an active participant in this public space.

The Common Ground News Blog was created out of the recognition that the news media plays a powerful role in shaping public opinion, attitudes and beliefs. We believe stories focusing on cooperation and on finding solutions are needed now more than ever, as we approach the Presidential election.

The Blog features current U.S. and international solution-oriented stories promoting understanding and providing opportunities for dialogue. By scanning traditional news and the blogosphere and compiling stories of cooperation, the Blog will be a source of inspiration and hope, and a "go to" source of information often neglected by mainstream media.

Readers from around the world can comment directly on the stories in the Blog, sharing their personal views and experiences. The Blog is an open forum and a platform for the type of frank conversation about conflict that Search for Common Ground endorses, and is a means to spread the common ground approach to the on-line community.

Although the Blog was just launched in July, the reactions have been strikingly positive. "It's news like this that leads me to believe there is hope," one reader posted, "I hope someday that which divides us will seem silly compared to that which unites us."

To take advantage of the unprecedented popularity and accessibility of YouTube, SFCG launched its own YouTube Channel. The site allows visitors to watch Common Ground Productions' clips - from the Middle East, Angola, Burundi, Nigeria, Nepal, Macedonia - including original peace songs, PSA announcements, TV drama series, and videos about our work.

The hundreds of comments to the SFCG YouTube videos attest to how much the organization's productions mean to individuals worldwide. "I cried my eyes out thinking about these two men singing about common ground," a viewer posted about the Middle East Peace Song "In My Heart". Another wrote "It gives me hope for peace."

About a short video on "Golden Kids News" at Talking Drum Studio in Liberia, another commented, "It's so sad that whenever you look up information on Liberia all you can see now is war clips or children fighting…Thanks for the work you are doing. God knows we certainly need it."

To read and discuss stories that explore our differences and focus on our commonalities, visit the Common Ground News Blog at http://www.commongroundnewsblog.com.

To see clips of some of Search for Common Ground's endeavors around the world, visit the SFCG YouTube Channel at http://youtube.com/user/sfcg.