Journalists should not act like 'disaster tourists' when covering the refugee crisis

Credit: Image by vlada93 on Shutterstock

The refugee crisis has dominated headlines across Europe since the photo of Aylan Kurdi's lifeless body lying on a Turkish beach shook the world in September.

But varied concerns have since emerged about the way the media is covering the crisis – from the language used in reports, which can dehumanise refugees and cause fear, to the challenges of putting a human face to the statistics.

At the POLIS conference at the London School of Economics today (21 April), reporters and editors covering migration and refugees in Europe shared the challenges they face in their journalism, and the ways they have found to report on the issue in a more constructive way.

Anna Masera, public editor of Italian daily La Stampa, pointed out that some journalists act more like “disaster tourists than migration correspondents,” failing to tell stories in an analytical and rational way.

They are creating “moving storytelling without really explaining politics, giving the data or giving context to the data,” she said, adding that simply publishing high resolution photography of the crisis is not enough.

“There’s need for constructive journalism. We need high explanation, who cares about the high resolution?”

At CNN, senior international correspondent Clarissa Ward has found a number of "logistical challenges that have made covering Syria incredibly difficult, incredibly dangerous".

“We have a tendency to compartmentalise – we talk about the Syrian refugee crisis and ISIS as if they were born in a vacuum.”

Her challenge has been getting into Syria to tell this story and bring the photos of refugees attempting dangerous journeys to Europe back to life.

“[You] can’t tell the story of the refugee crisis right now without looking at the source.”

Rossalyn Warren, senior reporter at BuzzFeed News, highlighted another under-reported issue: the mental health of refugees.

She interviewed Nehad, a 17 year-old Yazidi girl who escaped ISIS and is rebuilding her life. While the story of her suffering at the hands of ISIS and other similar experiences are often recounted in the media, little attention is paid to what’s next, and to the mental health of women and young girls who have survived torture and rape.

“What happens after that? The refugee crisis is ongoing. She may have escaped now but it doesn’t end there,” said Warren.

The piece BuzzFeed published following Warren's interview looked at how Nehad is coping today, focusing on her use of social media as part of that. “She is like any other 16 year-old in the UK”.

The audience’s reaction to Nehad's story was positive, with comments highlighting the refreshing aspect of reading an article that did not portray refugees as victims, but as survivors.

“A big thing is to think how can we report about these ongoing issues today, and how can we make them accessible?"

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