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UNESCO鈥檚 Commitment to Ethical and Inclusive Refugee Reporting at the Global Refugee Forum 2023
The event reflected UNESCO鈥檚 pledge to expand its efforts in supporting media鈥檚 capacity for unbiased and fact-based reporting, fostering dialogue between refugee and host communities, and empowering refugees with reliable information to enhance self-reliance.
Over the past decade, global headlines have been saturated with stories of conflict, desperation, and the perilous journeys refugees are forced to take. However, such media coverage can be influenced by misrepresentation, stereotypes, biases, and racism. At the Global Refugee Forum 2023, media professionals highlighted these challenges during the linked event titled 鈥Ethical and Inclusive Refugee Reporting 鈥 Charting a way forward for media.鈥&苍产蝉辫;
Organized jointly by UNESCO and UNHCR on 13 December 2023, the event brought together more than 70 participants, including veteran editors, media professionals, refugee journalists, academics, and representatives from media development organizations. The objective was to identify existing challenges in the media landscape and explore tangible practices for creating inclusive newsrooms and strengthening editorial policies for fact-based and balanced reporting on refugees.
Speakers on the panel, moderated by South Sudanese refugee and youth advocate Nhial Deng, emphasized the importance of allowing refugees to tell their own stories to avoid perpetuating inaccurate stereotypes.
Anealla Safdar, Europe Editor for Al Jazeera Online, said, 鈥淚 won鈥檛 commission a story about refugees if there aren鈥檛 any refugee voices in it. They are the ones who can tell us what they have been witness to.鈥 She also highlighted the need for editorial policies guiding the framing, language and terminology used in refugee-related stories, which can have serious consequences for people who need international protection.
Behind every refugee, there is a story about why they are leaving their country.
With UNESCO, Memo98 is supporting media outlets to integrate displaced media professionals into the production teams and produce content and news designed by, with, and for refugees. He noted that such integration of refugee perspective into content was vital for cutting through what he described as 鈥渨ar fatigue鈥 and countering disinformation. He acknowledged the challenge of funding, particularly for local media, as a significant obstacle in supporting quality stories on refugees.
Kathy Gannon, Former News Director for Pakistan and Afghanistan at the Associated Press, urged reporters to return to fundamental principles. Noting that all too often reporters react to a political narrative, which compromises their independence.
There are some basics about how you report. We need to return to source verification, listening to your source, responding to the narrative on the ground, not the narrative coming from governments.
The event concluded with a joint call from UNESCO and UNHCR for media institutions to join efforts in strengthening ethical and inclusive reporting on refugees. Looking ahead to the next Forum in 2027, the aim is to propose measurable commitments based on the discussions from the linked event.
UNESCO further announced a pledge to expand its work in supporting media, particularly in eight countries in Africa and Latin America, to create or reinforce content designed for and with refugees, free from bias and based on facts, thereby enhancing refugees鈥 access to reliable information and promoting stronger fact-based information exchange.
The pledge is part of the and contributes to the . It underscores the organization's dedication to developing media capacity to become a trusted source of information for both refugee and host communities alike.
