Roma in Canada: How the Czech media distort the facts

Sometimes the Czech media handle facts strangely. Some information makes into the news while other information is silenced or forgotten. By waving the magic keyboard, real events can become virtual reality in the blink of an eye. This used to be called disinformation, but today it should probably be considered “selective reporting”. One example of such selective reporting is a recent article published on iDNES.cz with the headline “Canadian daily: Schools do not know what to do about the backwardness of Romani children from the Czech Republic” (Kanadský deník: Školy si nevědí rady s liknavostí romských dětí z Česka).

This piece is a summary of an article published recently in the Toronto Star. The message of the Czech-language summary currently circulating on the web is that Romani parents who have emigrated from the Czech Republic to Canada do not send their children to school, are not interested in whether their children are educated, and neglect them. Through their selective reporting of the Canadian piece, some of the media are playing to the anti-Roma stereotypes of the Czech-reading public, and not for the first time.

In order for those who cannot read the original Toronto Star article to form their own opinion of its contents, we have translated it in full into Czech. The translation is available at http://romea.cz/index.php?id=detail&detail=2007_7173.