media

Unsurprisingly, the New York Times has endorsed Obama over McCain. The pillar of American print media remains the bete noire of a particularly virulent segment of conservatives, convinced that the broadsheet is at the centre of a "liberal, elitist" national media. During the Republican convention, Sarah Palin singled out the paper as an exemplar of high-falutin' coastal snobbery. 

It's difficult to gauge bias in such a venerable fixture of the American media landscape, one which in almost all respects is painfully centrist and middle-class in its sensibilities. Yes, the paper's op-ed page is predominantly populated by left-leaning columnists, and its editorials mostly take left-leaning positions. But there is little to the suggestion that the paper in the sum of its parts is somehow "leftist"; it was the New York Times, after all, that resurrected the spectre of Bill Ayers by recently making the ex-radical front-page news.

Were Obama to go on to win the presidency, many grumbling conservatives will fault a "pliant" media for giving the Democrat the edge. As Peggy Noonan writes in the Wall Street Journal, "The press knows who the press is for, and it isn't generally the one to the right." While Noonan goes on to blame McCain's own failings - not media bias - for his seemingly impending defeat, the image of a press corps swooning for Obama will remain a part of the narrative of this election campaign. 

But when only 18% of Americans get their news from print media, the grey lady looks more like a straw man. Talk radio and the explosive mix of news and opinion on 24/7 news channels have steered American discourse clearly to the right in the last fifteen years. In the end, newspaper endorsements don't count for much. And - despite Palin's protestations - nor do the east coast's "liberal" rags.

"Ok, now give me youthful enthusiasm!"

We all beam up at the camera as the local journalist takes photos of us preparing banners for Refugee Week; balloons, laughter and colourful paint. ‘Maybe we could paint ‘Refugee Week' on one of your faces?' The irony kills me; reluctant for a foreign face to appear in relation with this issue unless they are a criminal or footballer, a pretty white face is a lovely stage. For one day only it will be me, the lucky one to be branded with the colourful stamp of ‘refugee' while I hold a balloon next to me to represent a whole sub-population of faceless individuals. And why is this the case? Firstly, for many misguided people my face seems to fit the image of community in a way that of a foreigner does not. Furthermore, refugees themselves are often reluctant to come forward in the public eye and challenge this, and who can blame them given the public backlash these issues often face: it is a vicious circle...

Ms B, a refugee from Bosnia: There was a time when Claude Moraes MEP was on the news all the time - asked to comment whenever anything happened. But we don't have those spokespeople any more, and that leadership is lacking. You hardly ever hear the head of Amnesty International on these issues. There is no-one to speak with confidence and charisma on immigration and asylum issues. Very, very rarely does it happen.

Mr A, a refugee from Afghanistan: It's really not just the tabloids. That's the point. There really isn't much positive about us in the so-called mainstream press either. And this makes refugees and those seeking asylum think: "OK - we'll give up. We can't change people's minds."

We have from our refugee community some very successful people. But there is no story about them. But if someone has done good things, that should be mentioned as well. If someone has done something wrong - OK, they need to report that. But how will they report it. So you will read in a paper - "Arab rapist" - why not "Ahmed" or "Steve rapist" - why "Arab"?

But I'll give you a positive example of what can be done. I was living in Newcastle. Close by there is a little town called Sunderland, a nice place, but the problem is that they have more extreme views about refugees and asylum-seekers than you find in most other places. They don't like them. And there aren't many refugees there at all. The Home Office sent a few asylum seekers up there and police had to move them after a few days. In 2003, an Iranian asylum seeker was stabbed to death.

In the second part of our debate on the media and asylum Mr P, a refugee from Eritrea, Ms N, worker on mentoring schemes for asylum seekers, Ms M, community and outreach worker and Ms A, a Danish volunteer and member of the Media Group, discuss how to gain access to and work positively with the media.

In a very timely piece published on openDemocracy today, Charlie Beckett offers some useful insights on "networked journalism" that I think are worth bringing in to this debate. Beckett, of the Polis journalism and society centre at LSE has a book out Supermedia: Saving Journalism So It Can Save The World and argues that new tools of communication and forms of journalism can have a huge impact on the public sphere and democracy itself.

How influential is press coverage of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK? What responsibilities should journalists have towards refugee individuals and communities? And what kind of media can help frame a more constructive debate? At a roundtable discussion held in London on the subject a group of volunteers tackled the problem of media representation. In this first report, offering their thoughts on recent headlines and treatment of the story are:

I am in Vienna, a guest of the Institut fur die Wissenschaften vom Menschen, who, for their 25th anniversary, gathered a group ``Towards a European Public Space; International workshop on European media networking''. Mostly new serious media types, with a few academics (and some who were both) and one Commission representative, Habermas hovered over the day.

There was lots of really good material--Mark Hunter's combination of INSEAD hard-headedness with a career in investigative journalism; Jeremy Druker's description of TOL's training/editorial business model; Thierry Chervel, founder of the wonderful SignAndSight project, etc... I will have time to return to these.

With a tin ear and no television in my life, I walked into the BBCist crowd assembled for the 50th birthday of "Today" the morning radio news-show (a bit like NPR's "Morning Edition", or the French "Les Matin de France Culture") knowing there would be neither familiar faces nor voices around me. Until John Humphrys, who has been presenting the show for most of my adult life, took to the microphone, again. Here is a voice that has woken me up more often than my wife or daughters, who has come in and out of my morning dreams. It is the archetypal voice of the ordinary Englishman---pragmatic, impatient of obfuscation, a little enamoured of pomp.