Migrant crisis makes EU journalists hate targets

BY RAJASHRI DASGUPTA| IN Media Freedom | 21/04/2016
Stuck between the right wing accusing them of being ‘refugee lovers’ and twitchy governments, the media is under attack in this polarized climate.
RAJASHRI DASGUPTA, currently in Leipzig, describes their predicament
A story in Politico.eu

 

The forced migration of millions of people is the most compelling story today in Europe. Every day, television prime time and the  columns of op-ed and news pages are devoted to how to prevent the‘’massive influx’’ of desperate people fleeing war-torn Syria, Afghanistan or Northern Africa from “overwhelming” Europe.

There are panel discussions on how to stop the entry of desperate migrants risking their lives, escaping war in leaky boats, horrific pictures of the police clashing with exhausted refugees resisting barricades at the Macedonian border or eviction from camps in Northern France.

There are reports on the living conditions in refugee camps and tales of anguished parents in search of their children separated in the long journey through rough terrain and transit camps. Since mid-March, news of the ‘deal’ between the European Union (EU) and Turkey to push back the refugees,questioningthe hollowness of the EU’s high asylum standards and undermining its own human rights values, has troubled a section of the media.

The Greek debt crisis and the austerity measures imposed on the Greek people disappeared from public attention as refugees entering Europe began to dominate media reports. More than a million refugees have crossed to Europe, dividing the EU on the need for funds and sparking a crisis on how to resettle them. In Germany, there was widespread goodwill in the initial months as ordinary people opened up their hearts and homes to more than one million asylum seekers.

But the simmering xenophobic backlash exploded with the strengthening and spread of right wing forces across Europe. The anti-Islamic Pegida movement (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West) preyed on the insecurities of people and rising Islamophobia following the two tragic incidents in Paris in 2015 - the gunning down in January of 11 journalists in the office of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and the series of suicide terror attacks in November when 130 people were killed.

"A popular poster at right wing rallies in Leipzig or Dresden in East Germany boldly reads: Liar press, (Lugenpresse) we will smash your face."

 

The right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AFD) party, whose Islam-is-unconstitutional rhetoric is similar to Donald Trump’s threat to bar the entry of Muslims and to France’s National Front, gained a significant electoral victory recently in Germany.

Since last year, the social hysteria has led to attacks on refugees and the torching of refugee homes across Europe. Several attempts have been made to spread rumours and incite local people about their ‘‘alien’’ neighbours. The right wing raised the pitch following the New Year’s Eve incident where several women complained of being sexually assaulted in Cologne, Germany by men of ‘Arab origin’. The attacks against these “Rapefugees” and “sex jihads” sharply divided people in the continent.  

In this volatile and polarized climate, journalists face the daunting task of covering the refugee story with fairness and accuracy in Europe. For the media there are deep implications: the freedom to report without obstruction and the safety of journalists.  Facing ‘’hostile crowds’’ at meetings organized by right wing demonstrators against refugees, journalists have been the targets of physical violence and even death threats, their cameras have been snatched, and they have been abused, booed and barred from entering refugee camps and reporting from the site.

A popular poster at right wing rallies in Leipzig or Dresden in East Germany boldly reads: Liar press, (Lugenpresse) we will smash your face. "Reporting on these rallies means diving into a hostile crowd that despises journalists as agents of a political-media traitor elite whose promotion of multiculturalism has sold the country out to an invasion of foreigners," Frank Zeller, Berlin correspondent of Agence France-Presse, is quoted as saying in a report by Committee to Protect Journalists. 

 

Losing faith in the media

In October 2015, a poll by the Allensbach Institute, Berlin showed that 47 percent of the 1,209 Germans interviewed described the media reporting on refugees as "one-sided," i.e. pro-refugee. In another poll conducted for the North Rhine-Westphalia public broadcaster, WDR, one in five respondents felt the term "lying press" was justified.

Letters to the editor in newspapers talk of “losing faith” in the media, the closeness of the media to political parties and journalists being dictated to from the top. An irate letter in Mindener Tageblatt asks, ""Are you being paid by political parties or by your readers?" Der Spiegel, a weekly journal owned by journalists, like other media houses, has been attacked for its “uncritical reports” on the migrants’ issue and has been accused of being “assholes’’ and “Jew lovers”.

Riding on the outrage and hatred currently directed at the media in Germany, the German nationalist magazine, Compact, asked readers to vote for "Germany's worst lying journalists." Accordingly, Compact labelled the host of the political news programme "Panorama" on public broadcaster, ARD, a "siren of multiculturalism" and two Der Spiegel columnists as "anti-German" and "asylum preacher."

A few weeks ago, two Dutch journalists, who were attacked (they were rescued by refugees) said that the 40 second video clip of their experience created a ‘fierce reaction’.  Both the left and the right cautioned them against manipulating the truth, with the former accusing them of fanning discrimination and the latter accusing them of concealing inconvenient truths about refugees. Both camps urged self censorship.

 

Hatred leading to Violence

However, criticism and a healthy scepticism about the media is quite different from hatred for the media and violence against it. The European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, which monitors attacks and supports press freedom, listed at least 49 attacks in 2015 against the press in Germany, particularly during anti-migration rallies.

Der Spiegel writes: “The rage, hatred and hostility (of the public) are not just being expressed verbally anymore. ……..It's an attempt to stoke fear and create a mentality that turns journalists into targets, both individually and collectively. It's an attempt to muzzle the democratic media.”

Dunja Hayali, a host with the ZDF television network, during her acceptance speech for the Golden Camera award, a German film and television award, said that while reporting on the Pegida she sometimes encountered sheer hatred and had been called a ‘liar’.

According to some analysts, the rumours about the “strange cults” practised by the refugees, from ‘the killing of goats to their ‘sexual prowess”, which have been ignored by the media, are what fuel sceptics' belief in a "lying press." The editor-in-chief of the Berlin Zeitung newspaper was quoted in the media as saying, "Readers and users …want fast truths, which is absurd. As journalists, we must stick to the facts. A journalist has to call a presumption a presumption and a rumour a rumour.”

Hayali said that she had pursued each and every lead she received on Facebook about German women being sexually attacked and incidents of robberies by refugees and had found them to be baseless.

 

Government restrictions

European governments are wary of the political impact of the refugee crisis. They want Turkey, in lieu of billions of euros (for the refugees) and perhaps entry into the EU, to handle the crisis, but also wish the stories would disappear from the television screens and front pages. In Greece, the Pan-Hellenic Federation of Journalists’ Unions, opposed the ‘’unprecedented ban’’ issued by the Greek Ministry of Immigration Policy to prevent them from reporting on the refugees.

In Hungary, according to a civil rights union, the press is in crisis. Journalists are restricted from covering news concerning refugees and their safety is endangered. The police beat up reporters and break their equipment while some were also taken into custody. One journalist was forced to delete his footage. 

In the summer of 2015, the authorities rejected the applications of reporters to enter transit camps and interview refugees on the grounds of right to privacy and safety of refugees. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the Hungarian police who, on a single day, attacked seven international journalists covering the arrival of refugees at the Hungarian border. Associated Press was ordered to delete footage, a reporter for the Polish public broadcaster, TVP, was detained for 13 hours.

Tímea Beck, a reporter for Slovak daily Denník N, was beaten by the police and handcuffed after she tried to help a family of refugees. Australian photographer Warner Richardson and Swedish photographer Meli Petersson Ellafi of Expressen were both assaulted by the police. The Hungarian police denied the attacks on the media.

To regain reader confidence, the editor of Mindener Tageblatt, in an unusual move, responded to the critical letter of a reader by explaining that there was no governmental power that could control the media. MDR, a public broadcaster covering much of the eastern German states, reported critically on AFD and Pegida. But it has also always refused to sponsor anti-Pegida events and fundraisers. To refute allegations of being “controlled,” MDR journalists invited Pegida supporters to their editorial offices to observe their work, how news is gathered and transmitted.

Today, with extreme polarization and suspicion, it is a challenge even for senior journalists in Europe to convey that they are sensitive to people’s issues and constantly checking the facts.  But given the high value placed on freedom of expression as a basic human right in the EU, interference, bans and threats to muzzle the media will backfire.

 

Rajashri Dasgupta is a freelance journalist based in Kolkata. She has worked for Business Standard and The Telegraph and is associated with Himal Southasian.

 

 

The Hoot is the only not-for-profit initiative in India which does independent media monitoring.
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