News server Romea.cz. Everything about Roma in one place

News server Romea.cz. Everything about Roma in one place

Czech media analysis: News about Roma makes money, but reporting is not objective

02 January 2015
5 minute read

As part of a project called "Reducing discrimination and racism by altering the media depiction of Romani people", supported by a grant from Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway through the EEA Grants, the ROMEA organization has published an introductory analysis of the depiction of Romani people in the Czech media in recent years. The aim of the project is to prevent society from shifting towards extremism and a radicalization of its relationship toward Romani people by doing our best to influence and eventually also modify how the media reports about Romani people.

DOCUMENT

Media create their own reality 

The media have the power to create their own reality. They can construct and disseminate stereotypes, or depict Romani people objectively and eliminate prejudice against them.

It is important to follow the media and to analyze them, because a public influenced by negative attitudes during a time of social crisis has a tendency to lean toward the opinions of right-wing extremist movements and to approve of racially motivated criminal activity. The media should do a high-quality job of reporting and should ensure a plurality of opinions, facilitating the communication of expert perspectives as well as argument and discussion.  

Today’s media in the Czech Republic, however, are far from achieving this ideal. There are several reasons for the current state of affairs: Economic decline, encroaching competition from the internet and its products (blogs, social networking), pressure to produce a large amount of journalism rapidly, decline in the prestige of journalism as a profession, vulgarization, even the populism or racism of some editors or journalists.

Fertile ground for conflicts

When the media do not fulfill their social role correctly, they prepare fertile ground for the rise of interethnic and social conflict. Incomplete, misleading or even untruthful reporting of events out of context is responsible for the escalation of tensions in society.

The preference for “eye-catching” criminal reports about Romani people over positive reporting sparks negative emotions about them. It engenders a sense of endangerment, spreads panic, and drives the average citizen into the ranks of the extremists and populists.

These negative phenomena concern Romani topics first and foremost. As frustration rises in society, the Roma are more frequently understood as the “enemy within” who is to blame for everyone’s growing existential difficulties.  

Watchdogs are retired

When summarizing our conclusions and those of other recent analyses of the Czech media in this regard, we can say that the print and the new (online) media, during the first and second decades of this century, have not fulfilled the societal role that used to be described by the bon mot that “journalists are the watchdogs of democracy”. This has been especially evident during the last five to 10 years.  

The economic crisis and the rise of new media have forced publishers to reduce their editorial teams in order to maintain a profit. Publishers primarily focus on economic results (ratings and readership) at the expense of quality or even of journalistic ethics.

The functioning of the democratic rule of law and stability based on social cohesion are secondary matters to them, even at the cost of directly aiding in the deterioration of the social atmosphere by publishing misleading and even untrue information. The media not only abet the sense that the Roma are the "enemy within", they sometimes create it themselves by flirting with populist and radical social tendencies in their news reporting and in their other journalism.

Exceptions

Only some Czech media outlets are exceptions to this rule, such as the weekly RESPEKT, news servers Aktuálně.cz and iHNed.cz or the print version of Hospodářské noviny, whose mission is to do their best not to misappropriate Romani topics even as they critically point out the incorrect behavior of the media and politicians around them. Some other media outlets that are not mainstream ones (such as Alarm or DeníkReferendum.cz) take this same approach.

Recommendations

We do not want to consider the media to be solely the facilitators of negative emotions or those who are moved by such emotions. On the basis of this analysis by ROMEA and those of other organizations, we are contributing our recommendations to the media and also offering our assistance.

Generally speaking, it is better to report about events than to maintain silence about them. Local governments, the state administration and the media, however, should do their best to be objective and to cover the entire thematic breadth of what is happening, including positive examples.

When this is not done, it results in the communication of a one-sided opinion or in tendentious reporting. One-sided statements and tendentious reporting deteriorate the social atmosphere and add to the worries of the state, local governments and communities, in the form of increased protests against socially vulnerable people.

In the first place, reporting should cover the causes of this state of affairs:  The behavior of some socially excluded people is the result of phenomena linked to the culture of poverty, which no one is reporting on. Reporting should draw attention to positive activities and examples that have a positive impact on all residents in a certain place, through stories that are attractive to readers.

Reporting should respond quickly to crisis situations by collaborating with various important actors (civil society, local governments, police and the public) to refute rumors. Reporting should never distinguish between US and THEM (ethnic Czechs vs. the Roma, the majority vs. the minority) and should not polarize situations, and the actions of individuals should not be generalized to reflect on all Romani people.

Concluding analysis

In 2016 we will publish a concluding analysis of the media depiction of Romani people that will demonstrate to what degree our aim of positively influencing the Czech media has succeeded. In order to achieve this, we plan to collaborate with those editors who, on the basis of our contacting them, have already corrected their output, given Romani people more room to speak in news reporting, and turned to us with requests for aid in getting oriented in the Romani environment and for information.

DOCUMENT

Supported by a grant from Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway as part of the EEA Grants.

loga-upravena

Help us share the news about Romas
Trending now icon