Training the Media, Empowering Minorities

By presenting ethnic and other minority groups, which are often misportrayed in the media, in fair, accurate and balanced ways, the project aims to help develop media that will raise public consciousness of minority rights and help combat xenophobia, racism, ethnic discrimination and intolerance. The project is designed to promote a constructive role for the media in helping societies reduce conflict based on ethnicity, race, religion sex, and age. It aims to:

• promote more balanced, informed and inclusive media coverage of minorities;
• facilitate responsible and inclusive public discussion of key ethnically-charged issues;
• raise public consciousness of minority rights through the media;
• support confidence-building measures, such as the routine exchange of information between ethnic groups by means of the media;
• promote active and aggressive coverage of violations of human rights of minorities;
• promote media-sector NGO efforts to combat xenophobia;
• promote cross-ethnic media coverage and joint professional work;
• assist minority communities to represent their interests through the mainstream media and their own media outlets; and
• facilitate long-term monitoring of media coverage of minorities through training programs.

The project strategy proposes that changes in media behaviour - in particular, in the coverage of ethnic minorities - can have a considerable impact in stabilising inter-ethnic relations in the region. The project strategy is made up of six engagement strategies designed to achieve its objectives. It aims to work with ethnic minority groups to get their voices heard, and the media figures who are able to provide a forum for listeneing to them - journalists, media decision-makers, and journalism professors who teach future generations of journalists. The strategy addresses issues of racism, xenophobia and discrimination against ethnic minorities from different, inter-related angles.

The six engagement strategies are:

1. Empowerment of ethnic minorities
2. Awareness building and training of the mainstream media
3. Diversity education programme
4. Minorities and media working together
5. Media monitoring
6. Network building

Within these activity themes, a series of methodologies are used, including:

• practical workshops;
• conferences;
• community meetings of key media and minorities groups;
• distribution of kits containing communications material (manuals, case studies, invitations to events, network information);
• distribution of workshop follow-up kits and promotional material;
• distribution of communications and diversity manuals in local languages;
• internships by ethnic minority journalists in the mainstream media;
• team reporting projects of multi-ethnic teams of reporters to producing joint stories;
• long-term on-site consultants based in the region for periods of six months;
• development of a reporting diversity curriculum, including a survey of existing curricula, a working group of professors, mentoring the professors, and promotion efforts aimed at acceptance of the new curricula by education departments;
• reference books, list-serves and website;
• news agency diversity programme which sees MDI trainers mentoring news agencies to produce a series of high quality articles on ethnic and diversity themes;
• production of TV and radio talk shows and documentaries on minority issues; and
• media monitoring.

In terms of network building, it is planned that a South Caucasus chapter of MDI's Reporting Diversity Network (RDN) will be developed during the course of the project. The RDN represents an institutional vehicle by which long-term change in media behaviour in the region can be carried out after the project's end, providing long-term sustainability of this work. Building the network is an integral part of MDI's regional strategy - a strategy which MDI has enacted in South-East Europe, where an RDN of 18 members now exists, often driving forward its own projects.

Rights, Conflict

According to the project website, ethnic conflicts have grown in number and intensity in the South Caucasus since the fall of communism in 1991, worsening the position of ethnic minorities and strengthening mono-ethnic tendencies, as well as causing considerable population displacement. This project was developed based on the belied that informed, inclusive, and professional media coverage of ethnic minorities and issues of importance to them are the best bridge between divided ethnic groups. Intended impact of the projects includes:

• journalists and media managers will have more interaction with colleagues of different ethnic backgrounds, increased awareness of and sensitivity to diversity reporting, and greater capacity and desire to cover minority and ethnic issues;
• journalism educators at universities and institutes will develop and teach new curricula on reporting on minority and ethnic-relations issues;and
• minority groups will gain media relations skills enabling them to establish a more effective public voice in the mainstream political dialogue and to counteract damaging coverage and stereotyping.