The Racial Hatred Act: Case study 5
- interpretation of complex research findings, surveys, and polls
in news storiesReports:
- 'Federal laws blamed for Sydney's
welfare ghettos', Paul Sheehan, The Sydney Morning Herald, 1
July 96- 'Ethnic ghettos claim 'irresponsible',
Illawarra Mercury, 2 July 96- 'Urban Ghettos', Melbourne
Yarra Leader, 8 July 96Comment:
- The following journalists/editors comment on their coverage of Ernest
Healy's report.- The Sydney Morning Herald's
Paul Sheehan- AAP's Margaret McDonald
- The Illawarra Mercury's Peter
Cullen- The Melbourne Yarra Leader's Bob
Osburn- Ernest Healy, researcher and author
of 'Welfare benefits and residential concentrations amongst recently arrived
migrant communities' on how his report was misinterpreted by the media.- The Federation of Ethnic Communities
Councils of Australia comments on the harm done to communities
through the use of loaded language and offensive terminology in the media.Please note that none of the reports in the case studies have been the
subject of complaints or queries under the Racial Hatred Act.
Author of Welfare Benefits and Residential
Concentrations Amongst Recently-Arrived Migrant Communities, Ernest Healy,
says his report was misinterpreted by the media:
In my experience, it seems that the media have some difficulty in reporting
complex issues and we end up reading and hearing simplistic reports without
the relevant context or background.For example, a complex issue about a history of conflicting government
policies and their cause and effect is reduced to a sentence. This may
be due to factors such as time constraints of researching the report or
sub-editing to fit the report into the space or time allocated.The context here is: a heavy reliance of Vietnamese immigrants, who
are disadvantaged in the labour market because they are largely unskilled
and not proficient English speakers, on an exploitative informal labour
market.In my report, we used data to find out how recently-arrived groups are
faring in the labour market, not with a view to victimising those groups
but to guide policy development which might prevent those groups from becoming
further disadvantaged.The aim is not to stigmatise the people themselves but to identify the
problem that stems from Federal Government policy. It should be possible
to legitimately debate the issue of a reduction in immigration on non-racial
terms and without stigmatising migrants. Reconsideration of immigration
and resettlement policies should not incur a slur on migrants.The media needs to use the information they have responsibly. They need
to clearly distinguish news reporting from opinion.
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