Published: 17 May 2011
Region: Worldwide
For Media Diversity Institute by Aidan White, former General Secretary of IFJ
The story of the Roma, writes Aidan White, typifies the growing difficulties faced by journalists and the media in reporting on ethnic minorities….
The Roma story is complex and fascinating, but when told by the media it is often reduced to stereotype and prejudice. It is a story distorted by unscrupulous politicians and made worse when sensationally portrayed by unthinking journalists. Even so, the importance of the media in the fight against race hatred and injustice cannot be underestimated. Ethical journalism laced with fact-based reporting is a crucial ally in the struggle against prejudice and discrimination.
But how do we distinguish between these two faces of the media? How do we confront journalists and editors who appear unaware or unconcerned about the harsh consequences of bias and bigotry in their daily reporting? How do we nourish support for ethical journalism and truth-telling that enriches public understanding of the Roma people and their rights?
To answer these questions we need to consider how journalism works in today’s fractured and competitive information environment.
The problems facing Roma are easily identified:
- the language of journalism is often loose and dangerous – it can lead to xenophobia and even incitement to ethnic hatred;
- the failure of the media to make connections with Roma and to use Roma sources of information renders the community itself largely invisible; and
- the lack of context, background and fact-based analysis means stories are often half-told, making it impossible for the public at large to understand clearly the reality of Roma lives.
Improving news coverage will not be easy.
The Roma story is only one of the challenging items on the news agenda. Media coverage
of migration, religion, the threat of terrorism, asylum seeking, unemployment, poverty and deepening economic crisis are all part of a dangerous cocktail of social problems that make people uncertain and create anxiety within Europe.
In many countries there is a weakening of attachment to traditional consensus-based politics; right-wing extremism is on the rise. Just at a time when we require visionary and well-informed leadership, politics is being driven by populist rhetoric that aims to find scapegoats for society’s problems in our vulnerable and minority communities. Roma are among the prominent victims of this process.
Journalism, like politics, is also mired in crisis. The media are in the midst of historic change thanks to the online revolution. And while the internet has generated a new and inspiring world of information, it is also threatening. Today we all have free speech, and a range of ways to have our voices heard, but with unrestrained speech comes new opportunities for hatred and malicious misrepresentation.
There is an urgent need to encourage responsible speech and moral values in journalism. Many journalists are committed to defend human rights and ethical reporting, but they struggle when the media invest less money in training, investigative journalism and decent working conditions.
To confront these issues, Roma communities and those campaigning against discrimination need to forge a new vision of information and journalism to restore public confidence in the media and help journalists to reconnect with their ethical traditions.
Journalists across Europe are aware of the crisis and the desperate plight of their profession.
The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) – representing more than 250,000 journalists in the European Union – has launched a campaign to bolster journalism as a public good. One of the key messages of the campaign is that ethical journalism is vital to the future of the media. If traditional media are to survive they must rekindle the spirit of journalism as a force for progressive change. They must learn to refocus on the ethical principles of journalism – respect for truth, editorial independence and fairness, and respect for the communities they serve – in order to counter the negative trends within themselves and within society as a whole.
There are no simple answers to the problems of bias and malpractice, but the Roma, like other communities, can support strategies that will challenge the media to change direction and help journalists to rediscover their professional voice.
The struggle for equal rights is gaining momentum in Europe and campaigners against discrimination must take advantage of the opportunities this provides to repudiate the lacerating prejudice and witch-hunting of the 12 million Roma people who make up Europe’s largest minority.
This can be done in a number of ways.
First, by providing better information and alternative sources that will improve the reporting of Roma issues. The media need access to pictures, stories and authentic voices to explain the Roma story and its complexity.
The media need to explain how the vast majority of Roma face extraordinarily difficult circumstances in their everyday lives – poverty, discrimination and the lack of full participation in mainstream society. In some countries – Italy, France, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania, for example – right-wing groups and, sometimes, the state itself are to blame for violent mobilisation against local Roma communities. There have been forced evictions, deportations, acts of violence, even murder of Roma people.
Journalists need information to counter this wave of hostility. They need to make the link
between this latest tide of discrimination and a legacy of racism in Europe stretching back generations, which includes the Holocaust when hundreds of thousands of European Roma were executed by the Nazis. Over the last 20 years Roma have become a target of ultra right parties that began to proliferate in Eastern Europe to challenge post-communist governments. In the resulting atmosphere of extreme hatred, the Roma have been victims of violence at the hands of groups of neo-Nazis and skinheads.
Journalists need to know that their images of modern Roma – as exotic gypsies or romantic nomads – are obsolete. Today, most Roma people attach importance to their heritage but they no longer practice a travelling lifestyle. They seek stability, work, education for their children and prosperity for their families.
The Roma story is a rich tale of evolution of different communities themselves divided by geography, culture and language and rooted in the traditions of tribal migration from northern India many hundreds of years ago.
As well as a counter-information strategy, actions are needed to monitor media performance and to highlight discrimination wherever it arises.
Many journalists’ unions and media employers – such as the FNSI and FIEG in Italy – are committed to opposing the use of the media to promote discrimination, through, for example, the Charter of Rome. Similar declarations have been made by European employer and journalist groups.
These codes and guidelines need to be revived and should be used as the basis for discussions with individual editors and journalists whenever the media make mistakes.
Seminars and training should be organised on issues such as the use of language; the correct terminology when referring to Roma, gypsies and travellers; finding alternative sources; and the use of pictures. Alternative stories and positive angles to counter prejudice are vital parts of the mix.
This work can be taken up at a European level through groups such as the European Broadcasting Union, which has its own diversity toolkit for radio and television, and the EFJ which has launched the Ethical Journalism Initiative (see www.ethicaljournalisminitiative.org) to counter racism and intolerance.
If this is to succeed, there will need to be a stronger sense of solidarity between journalists and the communities they serve. Roma and campaigners against discrimination would do well to ally themselves with people inside the media who speak up for ethical and responsible use of information and who fight to create new forms of progressive journalism.
Journalists are notoriously bad at admitting their errors, but given the chance they will always take the opportunity to do better. When they do that, Roma everywhere will be among the first to benefit.
Aidan White is former General Secretary of the International Federation of Journalists. He can be contacted at aidanpatrickwhite@gmail.com