Published: 4 July 2013
Region: Worldwide
The United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) has launched a campaign to improve media coverage of migration. Its aim is to create a platform to further dialogue with media professionals in order to find challenges and best practices in the coverage of this issue.
In today’s societies, migration is often perceived as a threat to stability, prosperity and identity. Often migrants are used as scapegoats, are stigmatized and held responsible for existing problems. Therefore, the purpose of UNAOC’s initiative is to provide opportunities to counter misrepresentation and misinformation of migrants.Seminars with editors, journalists, media and migration experts from Europe and the Mediterranean have been organise in order to discuss on migration coverage with the outcome of a series of recommendations.
One of the recommendations was for journalists to develop a working knowledge of migration through regular trainings, offering modules or professional degrees on migration issue in journalism schools, and encouraging journalists to specialize in the coverage of migration.
Participants recommended encouraging diversity in newsrooms by employing journalists of migrant origins and/or minority origin to bring different perspectives and to enable them to use different sources and resources for a fuller and more balanced coverage.
They also suggested to reward journalists for quality coverage of migration, for example, creating a national or international award for the best example of migration coverage, as well as giving due recognition to media outlets paying special attention to the issue.
UNAOC’s initiative has also targeted social media. The campaign can be found using #coveringmigration on Twitter, the @UNAOC and @UNAOCMigration Twitter accounts, and the UNAOC Facebook page where journalists, experts and any citizen interested in this topic can contribute with their ideas.
