Media and Refugee Rights Association published their weekly monitoring reports with the support of Etkiniz EU Programme.
This monitoring study was carried out by Medya ve Mülteci Hakları Derneği [Media and Refugee Rights Association]. The aim of the monitoring study is to make visible the rights violations refugees face in the media and to run an active campaign for prevention in line with the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights and Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
The method selected for the monitoring work consisted of monitoring newspapers and news websites by searching for certain terms (mülteci, göçmen, sığınmacı, Suriyeli, Afgan) [refugee, migrant, asylum seeker, Syrian, Afghan] to collect and analyse reports containing rights violations and sharing them publicly in the form of weekly reports. Five weekly reports covering the period from December 7th 2019 to January 17th 2020 were released. Which rights violations the stories included in the reports led to was explained in detail. Furthermore, each week, a story was included in the report as an “example of rights focused reporting” as a best practice.
The data and findings obtained from the reports containing the weekly outputs of the monitoring work are as follows:
First Weekly Report (December 7th-13th 2019)
In the first weekly report, 174 stories were found to contain rights violations against refugees. Of these, 162 were prepared by news agencies and 12 by news websites. 133 of the reports with rights violations were published on national news websites and 41 on local news websites. The news website that fell on the radar the most was haberler.com, followed by 7 stories with rights violations each on Haber Türk and Milliyet, 6 on Hürriyet, 5 each on CNN Türk, Sputnik, Sabah, 5 on İhlas News Agency and 4 each on Yeni Akit and Takvim.
The most encountered rights violations within the gathered stories were hate speech against refugees, discriminatory language, unsubstantiated/unverified and false information, criminalising discourse, distortion, exaggeration, re-victimisation and the use of inappropriate images. The terms used for victims were also presented by proportion in the report. The three terms most often used in the stories were kaçak [illegal] with 60 per cent, kaçak göçmen [illegal migrant] with 53 per cent and Suriyeli [Syrian] with 28 percent. The distribution of stories by day and subject was also included in the report.
Second Weekly Report (December 14th-20th 2019)
In the second weekly report, 252 stories were found to contain rights violations against refugees. This report did not contain information on the proportional distribution of news sources for identified stories. The six news stories about refugees that gained most media coverage that week were treated of in detail and with visualised data, along with their news sources in the report. These stories were found in news websites and news agencies.
The most encountered rights violations within the gathered stories were once again hate speech against refugees, discriminatory language, unsubstantiated/unverified and false information, criminalising discourse, distortion, exaggeration, re-victimisation and the use of inappropriate images. Examples of these rights violations were presented in the report along with explanations of how the use of language
and discourse in the stories caused rights violations. Examples of reader comments from some of the stories were also given to show the influence of discriminatory discourse and rights violations on readers. The report contained one story as an example of “rights focused reporting”, which was analysed in this framework.
Third Weekly Report (December 28th 2019 – January 3rd 2020)
In the third weekly report, 641 stories were found to contain rights violations against refugees. This report did not contain information on the proportional distribution of news sources for identified stories. The five news stories about refugees that gained most media coverage that week were treated of in detail and with visualised data, along with their news sources in the report.
The most encountered rights violations within the gathered stories were hate speech and expressions depicting refugees as hostile, discriminatory language, unsubstantiated/unverified and false information, criminalising discourse, distortion, exaggeration, re-victimisation, the use of inappropriate images the use of discriminatory images and not reporting the source. Examples of these rights violations were presented in the report along with explanations of how the use of language and discourse in the stories caused rights violations. Examples of reader comments from some of the stories were also given to show the influence of discriminatory discourse and rights violations on readers. The report contained one story as an example of “rights focused reporting”, which was analysed in this framework.
Fourth Weekly Report (January 4th-10th 2020)
In the fourth weekly report, 466 stories were found to contain rights violations against refugees. This report did not contain information on the proportional distribution of news sources for identified stories. The five news stories about refugees that gained most media coverage that week were treated of in detail and with visualised data, along with their news sources in the report.
The most encountered rights violations within the gathered stories were once more hate speech and expressions depicting refugees as hostile, discriminatory language, unsubstantiated/unverified and false information, criminalising discourse, distortion, exaggeration, re-victimisation, the use of inappropriate images the use of discriminatory images and not reporting the source. Examples of these rights violations were presented in the report along with explanations of how the use of language and discourse in the stories caused rights violations. Examples of reader comments from some of the stories were also given to show the influence of discriminatory discourse and rights violations on readers. The report contained one story as an example of “rights focused reporting”, which was analysed in this framework.
Fifth Weekly Report (January 10th-17th 2020)
In the fifth weekly report, 347 stories were found to contain rights violations against refugees. This report did not contain information on the proportional distribution of news sources for identified stories. The six news stories about refugees that gained most media coverage that week were treated of in detail and with visualised data, along with their news sources in the report.
The most encountered rights violations within the gathered stories were once again hate speech and expressions depicting refugees as hostile, discriminatory language, unsubstantiated/unverified and false information, criminalising discourse, distortion, exaggeration, re-victimisation, the use of inappropriate images, the use of wrong terminology and the use of discriminatory images and not reporting the source. Examples of these rights violations were presented in the report along with
explanations of how the use of language and discourse in the stories caused rights violations. Examples of reader comments from some of the stories were also given to show the influence of discriminatory discourse and rights violations on readers. The report contained one story as an example of “rights focused reporting”, which was analysed in this framework.