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PAPER FOR EJTA CONFERENCE OCT 24th 2014

Roisin Boyd Lecturer and Doctoral Student in DIT

From speed journalism to slow journalism

DIVERSITY AND REPORTING ON ASYLUM SEEKERS

John arrived in Ireland when he was 16 years old. He travelled to Ireland from the

Democratic Republic of Congo to seek asylum. His father a political activist had made what

must have been the very difficult and painful arrangements of his son’s journey to Europe.

John left behind his parents his brothers and sisters.

John is one of many asylum seekers I have interviewed and got to know over a long period

of time. There are many different ways of hearing John’s story. It may arouse empathy, pity,

sorrow, for a young man forced to flee his home and his family or it may arouse scepticism,

and disbelief.

Reporting on asylum seekers and migration presents many journalistic challenges. Against a

hostile background where migration to Fortress Europe is contentious and politicised with a

focus on control and numbers – for the migrant voice to be heard, for the lived experience to

be reproduced in the mainstream media is challenging and difficult. Reactive speed

journalism as practiced in news and current affairs coverage feeds on drama, immediacy and

conflict.

Slow journalism offers the possibility of exploring the individual and lived experience of

migrants and of asylum seekers though this practice is not unproblematic. The highly charged

political debate around migration and asylum raises uncomfortable and pertinent questions

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for a journalist covering asylum issues and what questions should he or she be asking? What

does it tell us about media practice when a radio reporter responding to listener antipathy to

asylum seekers arriving in Ireland interrogates an asylum seeker who is protesting about

conditions in the Direct Provision where he is required to live, about why he sought

protection in this country rather than a neighbouring African state? Should journalists be

asking different questions?

Bridget Anderson author of ‘Us & Them The Dangerous Politics of Immigration Control’

argues that ‘We need a more nuanced account of racism and immigration that considers

nationalism and the ways in which the nation is framed as a community of value in which

migrants, and multiple others, are at best contingently included, and from which they are

often overtly excluded.’ (Anderson,2013)

Anderson writes too about the contrasting stereotypes of the ‘bad’ and the ‘good’ asylum

seeker; until the 1980s there was a relative openness to refugees citing Gibney and Hansen,

‘When the public thought about refugees,... it associated them with Hungarian freedom

fighters or Soviet ballet dancers, both of which were popular figures’. (Gibney and Hansen

2003a:1) But this heroic portrayal changed in the 1990s and there was a move from the

figure of the white political refugee fleeing the Soviet Union to the black asylum seeker,

running away from a failed state, or the Eastern European looking for a better life, both likely

to be ‘bogus’ and not political refugees at all. Contemporary asylum seekers are often

imagined as seeking to enter the UK not because they share liberal values, but because they

are in search of work or benefits rather than practical ideals like freedom of speech.’

(Anderson,2013 p.56).

I have been a broadcast journalist for more than 25 years, working mainly in RTE radio and

television – producing and reporting for daily current affairs programmes. After leaving RTE

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I worked as a communications advocate with human rights groups and with the Irish Refugee

Council1 where I was Head of Communications – my role was defined as countering negative

media stereotypes of refugees and asylum seekers and to highlight the reasons asylum seekers

sought international protection in Ireland. There was tension between the legal and the media

team as the lawyers distrusted the media and were reluctant for asylum seekers to speak to

journalists. They were anxious that such public interviews might damage their clients’ claims

for asylum.

Since starting my doctoral studies at the Centre For Transcultural Reseach and Media

Practice (CTMP)2 based here in DIT in Aungier Street I have been offered the possibility of

examining my own media practice. The title of my Research Topic is Revelation and

Concealment: the validating of Refugee and Asylum-Seeking narratives3 which

interrogates journalistic and advocacy practice around representation of people seeking

asylum; Asking How are their voices heard? Do they feel obliged to tell a particular story?. If

it is true that increasingly hostile environments exist in Ireland and Europe for asylum seekers

could it be suggested that the refugee story has become emptied of any power? Is there an

‘acquired culture of silence and secrecy’ Hajdukowski-Ahmed (2008) and if so, how does

this influence communication between journalists, asylum seekers and refugees?

There is of course no fixed story for asylum seekers or migrants. There is no one identity just

as in the general population as Kerry More points out in Migrations and the Media, (2012) ‘

...a person might hold multiple or even seemingly contradictory identities that are dependent

                                                            1 http://www.irishrefugeecouncil.ie/ accessed 14 November 2014 I worked as Head of Communications at the 

IRC from 2007 until 2010 

2 http://www.ctmp.ie/ accessed 14 November 2014 

3 http://www.ctmp.ie/postgraduates.php?id=231 accessed 14 November 2014 

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upon the social context, adopting apparently different behaviours or attitudes for different

social interactions, or when subject to different social forces.’(More,2012,p.67) Everyone

holds multiple identities for example I am trying at this moment to carry off the identity of an

academic!

Telling the stories of asylum seekers is a complex and difficult process. My contact with

asylum seekers has taken place as a journalist and as a communications advocate with the

Irish Refugee Council. I have learned that because you hide one aspect of your life or of your

story does not mean you are not telling the truth. For an asylum seeker certain revelations

may be dangerous.

Each asylum seeking story is legally framed because an asylum seeker is required to provide

detailed and often deeply personal evidence to support their claim for international

protection. This legal process can be gruelling and lengthy. Credibility is a recurring trope.

And for a journalist interviewing an asylum seeker whose story is in the process of being

judged by the State – the State will determine whether the asylum seeker’s story merits

recognition as a refugee - this offers particular ethical and journalistic challenges. The

recognition rate of refugees in Ireland is low; at one point it fell to 1.1 per cent meaning that

99 per cent of applications were refused. The recognition rate is now at around 19%.4

Caught between what might described as the strait jacket of the story required for their

asylum claim and the one that might be told in the public domain leads to many difficulties.

                                                            4 http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime‐and‐law/high‐court‐facing‐4‐year‐asylum‐case‐backlog‐

conference‐hears‐1.1840426 last accessed October 21st 2014 

 

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John, an assumed name, the young man, whom I mentioned earlier; who had fled his

country of origin as a 16 year old – leaving behind his parents and brothers and sisters. His

father had arranged his son’s passage abroad with a smuggler. I first met John when I was

researching a two part radio series on separated children for Today with Pat Kenny on RTE

Radio 1 called ‘Leaving Home Alone’.5 I had received funding for the project but was finding

it difficult to access young asylum seekers who would agree to be interviewed. John agreed to

do the radio interview. Possibly he hoped it might assist his asylum claim. Any questions

about what had happened to the family he had left behind rendered him speechless. Again

this raises complex and ethical questions about such interviews.

We kept in contact long after the interviews were broadcast and many years later after

numerous legal battles he was allowed to remain in Ireland.

I got to know Elizabeth when I was working at the Irish Refugee Council. She had come to

the IRC for assistance with her asylum claim. She was eager to tell her story and I

interviewed her for a FOMACS (Forum on Migration and Communications) educational

project called ‘Burden of Proof’. This is how she described her situation:

‘I had to leave Nigeria because there was a problem with the government. We had no choice

but to leave the country because our lives were in danger, my life and that of the kids were in

danger so it was the case that we had to leave.

My husband was involved in politics, he was not a politician per se but he was involved in

politics. He found out there was this corruption going on in the government and he took the

                                                            5 “Leaving Home Alone” Separated children in Ireland & DRC, RTE.

Two part investigation funded by Irish Aid under the Media Challenge Fund. Broadcast on Today with Pat Kenny RTE Radio 1 September 2004

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government to court. Because of that he was kidnapped. It was by God’s grace that he was

saved from that but after then there were a lot of harassments and attacks from the people

who thought he was trying to expose them; there was a threat to kidnap the kids. There were

frequent attacks on us physically and otherwise, emotionally. When the last one happened we

just had to leave the country.’6 Elizabeth’s application for international protection was

refused after four years. Elizabeth was deported to Nigeria with her children. Two months

later she emailed me in February 2011 to say, ‘The kids are not in touch with anyone no, as

for missing Ireland, yeah, i miss good friends like you, but i feel i and my kids were unfairly

treated, and if Ireland was a person i would never have been able to forgive her, because we

have gone through a lot, it’s now I realise why people who are not strong enough ,take their

lives.’

‘Having Your Voice Heard’ 7 was another FOMACS (Forum on Migration and

Communications) project with which I was involved. This was a radio-mentoring project

with six women from different migrant backgrounds. 4 of whom had been asylum seekers. I

was the mentor and lecturer. Each participant made a documentary during the 12 week

course. Having Your Voice Heard addressed the fact that the voices of migrants as subjects

                                                            6 Interview with ‘Elizabeth conducted in 2010 for Burden of Proof Toolkit. Burden of Proof: a short animated film on the story of asylum in Ireland produced by FOMACS (2007-2011) The Forum on Migration and Communications (FOMACS), now Counterpoints Arts http://counterpointsarts.org.uk/projects/ was a Centre-led cross-sectoral production-based research and creative hub producing film, photography, digital storytelling, radio and animation on the topic of immigration into Ireland, with the aim of not only reaching but engaging diverse audiences. FOMACS worked collaboratively with numerous partners including: advocacy organisations, filmmakers, digital designers, photographers, journalists, cultural institutes, arts organizations, curators, planners, theatre practitioners, writers, academics, teachers and youth groups. 

7 ‘Having Your Voice Heard’ is a radio-mentoring project offering participants training in the fundamentals of radio production (research, interviewing, scripting, pitching, and editing). Participants were recruited on the basis of their specific interest in and experience of working within the field of media, as producers, spokespeople and researchers. The course ‘curriculum’ was designed by the co-director of FOMACS Aine O’Brien and Roisin Boyd 

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are noticeably absent from public discourse. The Irish media focus is narrow when it comes

to covering issues of race, racism and migration. Stories about Africa and Africans whether

living in Ireland or in Africa are largely mediated through the lens of white Irish NGOs,

journalists, aid workers and missionaries.

The FOMACS approach to media production aimed to enable the subjects to represent

themselves.

The Having Your Voice Heard participants were recruited on the basis of their specific

interest in and experience of working within the field of media, with a focus on migrant

women, traditionally marginalised in the media industry.

Neltah Chadamoyo wanted to challenge negative descriptions of African men. Her

documentary was a tribute to her much loved deceased brother in law Taurai; Abiba Ndeley

recorded her neighbours in the flat complex where she lived – she described them as her new

family in Dublin. Her documentary countered the negative stereotype of racist working class

communities; Marsha Dunne interviewed her mother who was returning to Zambia after 20

years in Ireland – saddened by the increasing racism she was now experiencing and

contrasting this with the welcome she received when she first arrived; Gladys Otono,

explored the rarely aired topic of depression amongst immigrant African women, Vanessa

Ogida documented what it felt like to grow up in a polygamous family – she is the middle

child of 28; she elicited strong views on the topic in her recorded interviews amongst

Africans living in Dublin and Lauretta Igbonsonu, travelled back in time to her childhood

experience of the Biafran war.

The theme of ‘family’ was selected as the documentary theme, since it offered a wide terrain

to explore interrelated issues, such as gender, identity, power relations, community,

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integration, memory, history and tradition. It is also a universal subject which would connect

the documentary makers and their audience.

Although four of the participants had come through the Irish asylum system with two being

recognised as refugees none of the women wanted to explore this aspect of their identities of

their past.

Ronan Kelly producer of the The Curious Ear a short documentary strand on RTE Radio

agreed to broadcast the six documentaries. Although the women had edited and produced

their own stories – a first for migrant broadcasters – the documentaries were repackaged by

Ronan Kelly and given the title The Curious Ear through African Ears. 8

In a TED9 talk the Nigerian writer Chimamenda Ngozi Adichie describes ‘the danger of the

single story’, “The single story”, she states, “creates stereotypes, and the problem with

stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story

become the only story.” This is the challenge for journalists when covering migration issues

in particular the stories of asylum seekers and refugees. We must ask ourselves the hard

questions before we ask them of others.

                                                            8 http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/2010/0531/646396‐the‐curious‐ear‐doconone‐through‐african‐ears/ 

last accessed November 14th 2014 

9 http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en last accessed 

November 14th 2014 

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BibliographyAnderson,B. ( 2013) Us & Them. The Dangerous Politics of Immigration Control. Oxford: Oxford University Press

More, K. & Gross, & B. Threadgold,T. (2012) Migrations and the Media. New York: Peter Lang

Hajdukowski-Ahmed,M.& Khanlou,N.& Moussa,H. (2008) Not Born a Refugee Woman. Oxford: Berghahn Books

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