A REPORTER tragically murdered live on air in the US is headline news for days. Hundreds drown in the Mediterranean or suffocate in a container lorry in Austria merits a passing mention in news bulletins.
Undoubtedly part of the reason for this is that news is increasingly a visual medium – unless we see it for ourselves, it is easy to pretend it never happened. Video footage, however grainy, guarantees that it will top the news agenda.
But the language that is chosen by our politicians and media more than ever dictates our reaction to such events.
Those who died so awfully this week while fleeing Africa are described not as ‘asylum-seekers’ or ‘refugees’, but as ‘migrants’. And the language surrounding migration has become toxic, associated as it is with terms such as ‘marauding hordes’ and ‘swarms’, and the equally hysterical language to describe the events at Calais – pulling up the drawbridge to repel the (foreign) invaders. Oddly, Brits who decide to seek their fortunes abroad are not labelled so unkindly – but with the rather less threatening term ‘ex-pat’.
The tactic (and it is deliberate) of depersonalising a vulnerable group to justify our lack of compassion is nothing new.
It was once possible to use the word ‘benefits’ without instantly associating it with the terms ‘scrounger’ and ‘cheat’.
No more it seems, with the media treating those in need as at best some sort of freak show for the rest of us to watch, to allow us to feel better about ourselves.
Channel 5 should feel shame for putting on a whole evening of such shows last week, but those of us who gawp at car-crash TV are equally guilty.
Such language allows politicians to avoid their responsibilities and to divert attention from where the blame really lies.
Let us stop using this hate-filled lexicon, and start remembering that, these are people – they are you and they are me – who, for whatever reason, find themselves in despair. They deserve our compassion, not scorn or indifference.
