Published: 7 July 2017
Region: Euro-Mediterranean
Media in many countries on both sides of the Mediterranean are under-resourced and unable to provide the time, money and appropriate level of expertise needed to tell the migration story in context. This is the main finding of the study “How does the media on both sides of the Mediterranean report on migration?” conducted by the Ethical Journalism Network on request of EUROMED Migration IV, a programme financed by the European Union and implemented by the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD).
In this study journalists from 17 countries have examined the quality of migration media coverage in 2015/16 from a national perspective.
The study finds that journalists are often poorly informed about the complex nature of migration as a phenomenon; newsrooms are also vulnerable to pressure and manipulation by voices of hate, whether from political elites or social networks. At the same time, the study highlights inspirational examples of journalism at its best –resourceful, painstaking, and marked by careful, sensitive and humanitarian reporting. The study also provides a series of detailed recommendations and calls for training, better funding of media action and other activities to support and foster more balanced and fact-based journalism on immigration, emigration, integration, asylum and other migration-related challenges.
The study covers nine EU countries: Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Spain, Sweden as well as eight countries in the south of the Mediterranean: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine and Tunisia.
