Irish media producers have played their part in producing racism but the media could also play a role in promoting antiracism, Trinity College Dublin lecturer Ms Ronit Lentin told a panel discussion last night.
Ms Lentin was addressing a discussion at the Temple Bar Music Centre, on multiculturalism and the media organised by the monthly multicultural newspaper metro eireann to mark its first anniversary.
She was critical of columns by The Irish Times columnist, Kevin Myers, and Patricia Redlich of the Sunday Independent, on Travellers, which she cited as examples of how journalists often construct a white settled Irish "we" in opposition to a Traveller or refugee "them", projecting negative attributes to the "outgroup".
Last night's other panellists were Mr Alex Pascall OBE, chairman of the Black Members' Council of the National Union of Journalists, UK and Ireland, and Irish Times columnists Kevin Myers and Fintan O'Toole. Mr O'Toole also writes a column for metro eireann.
Mr Myers challenged the desire to establish a "holier than thoughness" moral high ground which says that anyone critical of immigration is a racist. He said it was appropriate for economic reasons for the State to regularise the status of asylum-seekers and illegal immigrants in Ireland as quickly as possible.
Mr O'Toole said it seemed a debate could easily set up a political correctness versus free speech, but this was a false juxtaposition. Good journalism has a horror of stereotypes and cliches, he said. "Structured and purposeful interventions" were needed in relation to media training to give people the opportunities to know how to present themselves and get their issues across.
Metro eireann was set up by two Nigerian journalists, Mr Chinedu Onyejelem and Mr Abel Ugba, last April. Its circulation is 15,000.