Moderators:

Mr. Arne Ruth, journalist/author, Sweden
Ms. Judith Vidal-Hall, editor, Index on Censorship, UK
Panel:
Dr. Haideh Daragahi, journalist, Women’s Voice, Sweden
Ms. Slavenka Drakulic, journalist/author, Croatia
Mr. Jamal Mahjoub, journalist/author, Spain
Dr. Anneliese Rohrer, Senior Editor, Die Presse, Austria
Prof. Ruth Wodak, University of Vienna, Austria

The seminar on the impact of media on intolerance was opened by Ms. Judith Vidal-Hall, who presented the subject of the seminar to the audience. She advanced the question of what impact media has today on intolerance, the main issue being what we can do to make sure that media is not just a passive bystander when facing intolerance. She said there was a time when the media was seen as the guardian and watchdog of leaders. Now, we have to ask whether the media is interested in anything but petty scandal. Does the media initiate attitudes to immigrants and others by its language and approach? Or is it simply a mirror of society, feeding back to its readers what they want to hear? Is the media any more than the society in which it functions? After the introduction each panellist made a five-minute statement.

Discussion centred at first on the role of the media in various countries and many examples were given where media had actually fostered intolerance. Professor Ruth Wodak stated that the media discourse in Austria has changed since Jörg Haider’s Freedom Party became part of the Austrian government in February 2000. According to her, the we-they dichotomy has become much more apparent in the media and it has gone so far that there have even been direct political interventions in a TV-program. The author and journalist Jamal Mahjoub spoke of a similar development in Denmark, where expressions and words were used without considering that they might be offensive to some groups. The language that is used in media can be decisive when minority groups get a feeling of being excluded from society.

The most obvious example of media’s tendency to enforce intolerance was given by Ms. Slavenka Drakulic. She analysed the media war preceding the real war in the former Yugoslavia. In the late eighties nationalism escalated in the media and while Serbian press attacked the Albanians in Kosovo and the Croats, the Croatian press mainly antagonised its Serbian minority. Media created a clear picture of who the enemy was and by the time war started people were already psychologically well prepared for it.
Anneliese Rohrer, the senior editor of the Austrian paper Die Presse, moved the discussion further while talking about her own share in media’s responsibility for the success of Haider.

Rohrer found herself to be guilty for a couple of reasons. Having avoided a rational discussion about intolerance and media, failing to question the anti-foreign laws made by the Social Democrats and not looking at the problems of immigrants in Austria made her partly responsible for the failure of Austrian press. The uniqueness of the Austrian mediastructure was mentioned more than once by Rohrer and Wodak as being to blame for the absence of a discussion on the role of the media.

Though all panellists agreed that media has a lot of power to change people’s minds, Rohrer stressed that media cannot be blamed for everything. Although politicians tried to use the press to avoid the change of government in Austria and though all the biggest papers were against Haider, they didn’t succeed. Media, apparently, does not always change people’s minds the way it intends to.

Discussions then turned to what media can do to combat intolerance. Part of the answer was given by Rohrer when she spoke of what she had failed to do. The journalist Haideh Daragahi pointed to the tendency in Swedish press to let immigrants speak only about their lives as immigrants. The panellists observed that there is a need to let representatives of minorities living in Europe into the media. New vocabulary, new truths and stories that are not admitted today must be given space and acceptance so that minorities can identify with the society at whole. Today, the cultural traits of minority groups are simplified and generalised so that no deeper understanding of the culture emerges.

There has to be a consciousness about the language that is used and how minorities are labelled. To some extent political correctness is a good thing. Still, political correctness and tolerance can sometimes be negative, because it makes journalists avoid questioning and seriously discuss such things as honour-killing, for instance. Daragahi stressed that tolerating certain cultural traits might be the wrong thing to do. If media in general do not address these questions, it will give racist organisations the monopoly of talking about them. Drakulic thought that the failure to seriously write about cultural minorities has to do with indifference rather than with tolerance.

Lord Janner, who was in the audience, finally raised the question of freedom of expression and whether it has to be limited to combating intolerance. Opinions diverged on this question. While Rohrer advocated freedom of expression without limits, the moderator Arne Ruth suggested that freedom of speech should be restricted only when there is a clear and present danger. JVH added that, as in the case of Serbia or Rwanda, where the media preached war and hate and there was no rival voice to speak against them - that is to say, no room for any debate or countervailing propaganda - there was a strong case for restraining/banning the single voice. The most important thing for the media is to guarantee that a variety of opinions is raised, and only when there is no voice to oppose the media the freedom of speech should be restricted.

Slavenka Drakulic asked if journalists should be subject to international legislation so that, as in the case of the former Yugoslavia, they might be put on trial for war crimes in The Hague. Arne Ruth concluded the seminar with this proposal and the suggestion of making professional guidelines for journalists.

Karin Wallton