KATARZYNA WRÓBEL
Thousands of refugees come to Europe to take its inhabitants everything they possess: all the material goods, jobs, Christian values and culture! Avalanches of people seeking a better future on the other side of the Mediterranean Sea or sneaking through the Schengen borders and preparing terrorist attacks! Masses occupying railway stations and waiting for a leave to Sweden and Germany!
It is easy to write about refugees in bold and capital letters using exclamation marks and screaming words. No concrete numbers, no proves, just pure excitement, sensation and… fear. The selling of newspapers must go up, television programmes fight for their audiences, online news sources race to gain as many followers as possible. Meanwhile, talking about such a sensitive topic as the current situation of refugees demands accuracy, distance, knowledge and checked information. How to report about it?
Citizen Journalists on Tour is one of programmes of Kreisau-Initiative, an NGO dedicated to improving civil society in Germany and other European countries, especially in Eastern and Central Europe. The last week of November journalists and people interested in the refugee topic met at the conference centre Krzyżowa (Lower Silesia, Poland) to debate on how media in Estonia, Germany, Greece, Poland and Sweden inform about it. Although the problem is of different scale in each of these countries, it seems that the news coverage is everywhere based on similar, often simplified means which do not reflect the essence of the subject. Anna Frenyó, a freelance journalist who has reported about refugees a lot, led workshops concerning the use of language, images and emotions in journalist materials showing the current situation. It is not a surprise that one unfortunate comment might be sufficient to manipulate the audience, evoke hatred and fear. A suggestive tone of narration in a podcast, a particular choice of interviewees or tricky questions steer people to answer in a way the interviewer wants to hear. Should we allow ourselves on statements like: “I’m not a racist, but…”, “I’m not homophobic, but…“?
David Mitchell in one of his most famous books, “Atlas of Clouds”, writes: (…) ignorance of the Other engenders fear; fear engenders hatred; hatred engenders violence (…). Do aggression and hate speeches in reporting about refugees follow from the lack of information about them? The words deserve a full attention especially in countries like Poland, where the number of foreigners is small (in 2013 it was 0.1% of the whole population). It seems that people in such countries do not have much in common with foreigners. Is this the reason for their reluctance towards them?
Still, this sceptical attitude is also to be observed in countries where the share of migrants in the entire society is on the level of 20.3%, like in Germany. There, organized groups, e.g. PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident) demonstrate against refugees on a weekly basis, mostly in Dresden. Local communities gather too to prevent a creation of asylum shelters close to their homes. Their anti-migration statements sometimes escalate and lead to aggressive actions like burning shelters. Paradoxically, these movements are especially vivid in the Eastern part of Germany, where the amount of migrants is much lower in comparison to other regions. In Saxony, there is a talk about 2.9% of the population, whereas e.g. in Hessen people with so called “migrant background” take 13% of all the region’s inhabitants.
So maybe there is a grain of truth in a statement that the lack of information evokes fears against an “unknown” coming from different parts of the world? But this is exactly what the role of media is (or should be): to inform people in a way that they feel familiar with the topic in a comprehensive and professional way. By showing Angela Merkel in a chador or concentrating on dramatic images like the one from Hungary, where a man threw his wife with child on the rail traction after the Hungarian police did not let them go further to the West, do not help in providing the audience with the context of reliable, well-balanced and objective information.
Nonetheless, is objectivity possible at all? This tricky question was also discussed during the workshops in Krzyżowa. The truth is, it is highly difficult to stay absolutely objective when reporting about the subject of refugees. It is so because the talk is not about any subject at all, but about real people. For some of us they appear as poor and unfairly devastated guests from different countries seeking an asylum in richer, more peaceful Europe. For others, they are suspicious foreigners flooding our motherlands like unwanted enemies. It is easy to recognize that both sides are pre-programmed in their opinions and there is no point for a further discussion because of mutual, contradictory objections.
This is exactly what journalists need to avoid. However, it does not happen. Having analysed various journalist samples from five countries, whose representatives participated in the Krzyżowa workshops, we created a few simple, but crucial rules which should be respected by journalists when reporting about refugees.
The most important is to use an appropriate and precise terminology – so far words: migrants, asylum seekers and refugees are used interchangeably, whereas their meaning is not the same. Media have enormous power. They should use it by giving a voice to these people who normally are not heard. They can draw attention of broad audiences to a topic which might not be interesting at the first glance. Moreover, journalists need to feel responsibility when reporting on refugees. They should not be left with impunity.
Obviously, a thorough research, interviews, meetings create a stable basis on which stories can be built. Nevertheless, numbers will never be sufficient if they cannot be analysed, compared, interpreted. Statistics are better understandable if there is a certain frame of reference. Otherwise they might be used as a tool of manipulation to convince the audience to the author’s opinion. Finally, journalists dealing with the question of refugees must keep calm and talk about them in a serious, but not dramatic way. It is indispensable to keep a sober eye on important questions and not let oneself lose in a pro- or contra-extreme. Journalists need to report, not assess.
Citizen Journalists on Tour was not a purely journalist project. Even if media stood in the centre of its interest, it was an interesting experiment of urging people of different backgrounds to discuss the role of journalists in the so called “refugee crisis”. Various points of view were an important enrichment and gave us all a fresh look at the situation. Certainly, it was an informative row of workshops and discussions. However, the question “What was the biggest personal gain from the meeting of Krzyżowa?” might still drill heads of some participants. It is definitely good to organize such rounds to broaden participants’ horizons. Is it an expected outcome? It depends on how it is going to be used. In any case this is a good start. Because the problem will not disappear neither today, nor in the foreseeable future…
Katarzyna Wróbel, absolwentka nauk społecznych Uniwersytetu Humboldta w Berlinie oraz nauk politycznych Uniwersytetu w Poczdamie. Stażystka w redakcjach mediów polskich i niemieckich, m.in. w Newsweek Polska, Die Welt i Osteuropa. Obserwatorka międzynarodowej sceny politycznej ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem Europy środkowo-Wschodniej i Wschodniej. Publikowała również na portalu EastBook.eu.
Photo credit: Ilias Bartolini, (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Read also:
M. Makowska, Disrupting, but still not solving – EU policy toward migrants
R. Smentek, PEGIDA – „gorący kartofel” Angeli Merkel
M. Makowska, Waga ludzkiego życia w politycznej grze Europy
M. Russjan, Polityka UE wobec uchodźców – analiza dotychczasowego podejścia
