Challenges facing the accurate news coverage of minorities and immigrants

The media is powerful. Influential politicians are hungry for media attention because they know that the media can help them create a positive public image. But what about minority groups and immigrants?

To answer this question, The European Policy Centre (EPC) held a Policy Dialogue on 31 May 2011 at the International Press Centre in Brussels on the way media can affect the public understanding of minorities and immigrants.

More than 40 participants including journalists from Pakistan, Japan, South Korea and the United States attended the event.

Moderated by Yves Pascouau, EPC senior Policy analyst, the discussion gathered three panel members: Oliver Money-Kyrle, assistant general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, Alexandra Moe, Washington D.C Director of New America Media, and Italian journalist Raymon Dassi, who engaged in a lively two-hour discussion about the media coverage of minorities and immigrants.

(from left to right) Alexandra Moe, Oliver Money-Kyrle, Yves Pascouau, Raymon Dassi

Media Structure

Oliver Money-Kyrle, Assistant General Secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, pointed out to a couple of structural limitations in the media itself. The journalists who are currently covering the topic are dominantly white and middle class. As a result, he said, the newsroom inherently fails to represent minorities.

In addition, Money-Kyrle noted, even when a journalist produces a good article on immigrants or minorities, the headline sometimes distorts the original intention of the article due to “selling issues”.

The article and the headline are written by two different journalists, and most of times, Money-Kyrle said, the person in charge of the headline is under pressure to sensationalise the wording in order to catch the reader’s attention.

Moreover, as a consequence of the financial woes affecting news companies, journalists are being forced to work on several stories at the same time. They are forced to work as freelancers or with short-term contracts. Money-Kyrle suggested that these working conditions have an impact on the quality of journalism in the long run.

Choice of wording
The panel members and most of the journalists in the audience agreed to say that the media coverage of minorities and immigrants has improved in the last decades. In their view, journalists are more conscious today compared to 15-20 years ago in their choice of wording when describing minorities.

The panel also discussed at length the recent rising of right wing parties in Europe and the strong and powerful negative narrative of immigrants that has surfaced in politics and even in the media.

“Politics and journalism are two areas that are closely related and in Italy, the perception of immigrants and minorities in the media is increasingly faulty,” said Italian journalist Raymon Dassi, who is also a member of the Italian Intercultural Journalists Association.

Money-Kyrle indicated that right-wing politicians try to manipulate the image of immigrants and portray them as being a great threat to their own countries. “This narrative is very powerful,” he said.

Cautious optimism

The panel members were generally optimistic about the role of the media in covering minority and immigrant communities. Money-Kyrle suggested however that without government intervention and support, the current financial situation of the media does not guarantee a better news coverage of these groups in the future.

“Journalism is a public good, and governments have to intervene to create new market conditions so that migration issues are properly covered,” Money-Kyrle said. He suggested that the role of media is not to protect immigrants and minorities but to seek the truth. ”That is why the accurate coverage of these groups is of paramount importance,” he said.

Alexandra Moe, the Washington D.C director of New America Media, also mentioned the rising of ethnic media, which now reaches about 60 million adults on a daily basis in the United States. ”Immigrants and minorities are able to inject their voices to the society which they are part of,” she said.

Dassi predicted that the political participation of immigrants will change their image in the media: “Thanks to the internet and social participation, the immigrant’s consciousness is becoming substantial,” he said.
Overall, the concluding message of the discussion was that the media coverage of minorities and immigrants has improved but still has a long way to go.

Text and photographs by Taein Park, EJC intern

 

 

Posted on June 21, 2011 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
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