Alfred Harmsworth, who founded The Daily Mail in 1896, when asked the secret of his success replied: ‘I give the people somebody to hate every day.’
Sadly it appears with those words Harmsworth set the tone for modern journalism.
Since then various groups have suffered as a result of unethical reporting: Jews, black people, Muslims, the Irish just to mention a few.
In keeping with 19th century Harmsworth’s strategy, out of greed for money and mere bigotry, in modern days we are seeing an increase in publications angling their coverage towards sensationalism, appealing to the worst prejudices of their reader.
We have observed that there is particularly a growing sloppy reporting, bias, or wilful sensationalism in the British press’s coverage of refugees, migrants and other ethnic minorities.
Errors, distortions misleading impressions, inaccuracies, fabrications being commonplace.
The tarnishing of people who cannot defend themselves in order to sell newspapers is utterly unacceptable. It enforces false stereotypes and divides communities.
British papers are often getting their news about ethnic minorities wrong and often they are reusing the same stereotypes.
On these pages we hope to make a small difference to refugees and migrant communities by helping them to rebuild lives as we expose British media prejudices, inaccuracies and exaggerations.