Ms Louise Harrington:

I will talk about raising the bar and creating a more proactive media around challenging racism with a number of practical suggestions. Currently, the role and standards of the press ombudsman and the Press Council of Ireland do not include the online pages of their media members. We would like to see this aspect reviewed and an obligation to be placed on their members to be proactive in monitoring and pre-moderating comments and eliminating hate speech from their online platforms. The same would apply in respect of bodies under the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland.

We would like to see the development of media standards around racism and the coverage of minorities and ethnic groups to include the development of an anti-racism protocol and training for journalists on the duty to report in a fair, balance and non-racist manner. Once standards around anti-racism and the media were developed, a system of merit could be awarded to recognise media channels and journalists who champion good practice. Media reporting on minorities and ethnic groups is a powerful communication tool that can shape society's attitudes. We would love to see a platform created for the media to review and reflect on their role in exposing racism by reporting on it, which can also normalise and reinforce racism versus their role in challenging racism. To expand on this, we give the example of some of the media coverage around the most recent presidential campaign, which was mentioned already, which gave considerable air time to targeted anti-Traveller sentiments and effectively normalised and gave an air of respectability to these sentiments and to Traveller ethnicity denial.

We are also concerned about racist views being justified in the media by an understanding that it represents journalistic balance. As it would not be morally acceptable today to introduce a misogynist to comment on International Women’s Day for journalistic balance, it should no longer be acceptable to include the comments of a Traveller ethnicity denier or an anti-Traveller spokesperson to give journalistic balance every time Travellers are talking about human rights in the media.

I believe Traveller groups, certainly the Cork Travellers Women’s Network, would welcome the opportunity to build closer strategic links around building trust with journalists and media outlets who are open to supporting human rights and the fair treatment of Travellers in the media.