Media fails in presentation of refugees and Roma

The migration crisis highlighted the media's approach to minorities and discovered common stereotypes, prejudices and generalisations, Agnes Horváthová from Romano Kher told TASR on Saturday. Romano Kher is a civic association that carried out this media monitoring in cooperation with the Media Academy in Bratislava. Horváthová said that the media depicted migrants just like they did Roma people - as a homogenous and monolithic group that poses mainly problems. "Politicians have only backed up these stereotypes labelling 'Roma issue' as irresolvable and discouraging from admitting refugees to Slovakia", said the activist. According to Horváthová, some media are purposefully advocating good examples and thus trying to improve the negative image of Roma. "On the other hand, there are media that keep on confirming stereotypes and prejudices. They realise that Roma people are one of the 'marketable articles' in media and don't hesitate to state the ethnicity directly in the headline", criticised Horváthová. A lot of stories depicted the way of life in Roma settlements. The research showed that of 309 stories, 145 were with no specified residence and 102 about Roma living in settlements. However, Roma Communities Atlas shows that approximately half of all Roma in Slovakia live dispersed among the majority population. "Journalists often don't give any space to Roma of which they inform the public. If such a space is offered, they usually label the Roma respondent as a settler", asserted Horváthová, reminding that Roma as well as refugees can't defend themselves as they often don't have any access to media.