The date was not chosen by chance. The Association of Antiracist and Racialized Journalists (AJAR) has formalized its birth certificate in a column published by Release March 21, the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, proclaimed in 1966 by the United Nations.
Journalists for radio, television, the written press or even photographers, 170 people signed this text calling “editorial departments and schools [de journalisme] to take their responsibilities (…) faced with the observation of racism and the lack of representation in the media”feeling all the more concerned that they met him or witnessed him through their “ethnic origins”, “skin colors”or their “religion”.
According to an SNJ-CGT survey on racism in newsrooms, 24.2% of the 167 people questioned said they had been direct victims and 47.1% had witnessed it. Still in the same survey as The world was able to consult before it was revealed on March 28 at the Assises du journalisme de Tours, 44% of those questioned said they had already been victims of discrimination at work (linked to gender, sexual orientation, religion, origins ).
Journalism schools singled out
Two 26-year-old journalists (Arno Pedram, who works for France 24 and Infomigrants, and Khedidja Zerouali, from Mediapart) are on the initiative of AJAR. In the space of a few months, they managed to federate trade union organizations (SNJ and SNJ-CGT) and known faces such as producer Ali Rebeihi, columnist Rokhaya Diallo, producer Sébastien Folin or journalist Nora Hamadi.
Exasperated by stereotypical media coverage, the two young people say they have been upset by reports of xenophobic remarks within the press companies. Blame it on the editorial staff still too “monochrome” today, that is to say overwhelmingly white. Even if ethnic statistics are tightly controlled in France, there are no quantified studies of the social or ethnoracial composition of newsrooms.
Journalism schools are often singled out. The competitions lead to a reproduction of the elites, to little social and ethnocultural diversity, to an overrepresentation of students from political science, even if the establishments are now working to erase this by recruiting more scholarship holders.
The operation of the newsrooms and the recruitment policy must also be reviewed. Moreover, some have implemented policies promoting work-study students who do not necessarily come from recognized journalism schools. ” We want that beyond the speeches, there are actions “, proclaims Khedidja Zerouali, believing that it is about the good representation of French society in all its components. “To get out of self-segregation, we need more transparency and recruitment criteria based on skills in a real integration process”says Pascale Colisson, educational manager of work-study training at the Practical Institute of Journalism in Dauphine (IPJ)-PSL.
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