RACISM AND THE PRESS IN
Teun A. van Dijk
Universitat Pompeu Fabra,
First draft, March 4, 2006
NB. The examples in Spanish will be
translated in a future version of this paper.
Article to appear
in a Spanish version
in a book edited by Antonio Bañón (
Abstract
Against the background of
a more
general discussion about the role of the press in the reproduction of
racism,
this paper examines some properties of the coverage of immigration and
ethnic
affairs in the Spanish press. In particular, it focuses on the coverage
of three
recent events: the ‘assault’ of
Introduction
The international conflict
caused
by the anti-Muslim cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in the Danish
newspaper Jyllands Posten has been widely covered
in the world’s press, also in
These three events will be
examined
in more detail in this paper in order to illustrate the way the Spanish
quality
press, and in particular El País, covers
‘ethnic events’ in general, and immigration in particular. I shall do
so
against the broader background of earlier work on European elite racism
and the
role of the press in the reproduction of ethnic inequality in society.
Elite racism and its denial
If there is one social
phenomenon that
is often referred to, and even more often denied, but without much
knowledge
about what exactly it is, it is racism. If acknowledged at all, racism
is
typically attributed to others, to other countries, to other (‘lower’)
classes,
or considered to be a thing of the past. Against the daily experiences
of its
victims, European racism against non-Western immigrants and ethnic
minorities
is seldom recognized by the political, media and academic elites.[1]
One of the reasons of this
consistent and widespread negation is that racism is often associated
with and
limited to the Extreme Right, that is, with blatant prejudices and
discrimination. The many more subtle, interpersonal as well as
structural and
institutional forms of everyday racism are usually ignored, and
emphatically
denied when they are attributed to the symbolic elites who control the
access
to public discourse.
Yet, if we assume that
racism is
not innate but learned, it must be learned during the social practices
that
have most impact on most people, that is, public discourse in general,
and
political and media discourse, in particular — as well as on the
everyday
conversations that in turn are derived from this public discourse.
Indeed, in
most Western European countries most ‘white’ citizens do not have
extensive
personal and daily experiences with immigrants or ethnic minorities,
and most
information — as well as opinions — about them, hence, must be derived
from the
mass media, and learned from those who have access to the mass media.[2]
This argument is based on
an
empirically well-tested theory that defines European racism as a system of social power abuse, of
domination of non-European ethnic minority groups by a European
(‘white’)
ethnic majority (and in some countries, such as Guatemala, and the
former
Apartheid South-Africa).
This system of ethnic
domination
has two major dimensions, namely that of social
cognition (prejudices, racist ideologies), on the one hand,[3]
and of social practices
(discrimination, exclusion, etc.), on the other hand.[4]
In order to be able to discriminate on ethnic grounds, one needs the
relevant
beliefs, categories, values and norms that define ethnic prejudices and
ideologies. And in order to acquire such beliefs, one in turn needs to
be
exposed to racist discourses, which are themselves prominent social
practices
of the system of racist domination.
That is, racist practices,
cognition and discourse are intimately related: we learn our prejudices
largely
through text and talk, first from our parents and friends, then from
textbooks,
television, and the newspaper, that is, from the symbolic elites:
teachers,
journalists, writers and politicians. The same is true, obviously, for
our
antiracist beliefs, ideologies and practices.
The question then is which
of these
discourses are dominant in society. Extensive international research of
the
last decade has unambiguously shown that the ‘white’ press in general
is part
of the problem of racism, rather than part of its solution.[5]
Whether more blatantly on
the Right
and especially in popular tabloids, or more subtly on the Left, all
empirical
research shows, among many other things, that non-European immigrants
and
minorities are systematically portrayed as a problem, and attributed
many
negative characteristics, of which violence, crime or cultural
(religious,
linguistic, etc.) deviance have been the main ones.
Moreover, the research
shows that
this bias is also due to the systematic discrimination of minority
journalists:
despite the presence of qualified minority journalists, newsrooms
anywhere in
In other words, the mass
media play
a prominent role in the coverage of ethnic affairs, and they do so in a
way
that promotes ethnic prejudices and, indirectly, discriminatory social
practices based on such negative beliefs about the Others.
The media, however, are
not alone.
Much of their new and coverage is of politicians and political
discourse,
another ‘elite’ source of racism in society. Again, as is the case for
the
media, also the majority of the politicians are not blatantly racist,
and
indeed some are antiracist. However,
as suggested above, much
of their
‘modern’ racism is rather indirect, disguised and mitigated. Their
discourse
might be focusing on the ‘problems’ (rather than the challenges and
possibilities) of the multicultural society, and is often limited to
arguments
that oppose further immigration — often in name of the ‘people’.
Racism and the Press
Let us examine some of the
properties of the racism in the press, and then proceed to a more
detailed
account of the three events widely covered in the Spanish press: the
‘assault’
on
As suggested above, one of
the
conditioning elements of the prevailing racism of the European press is
inherent bias in the processes of production. Newsgathering routines
favor
discourses of elite sources, and because the elite sources are
predominantly
white, the dominant discourse that is used as news, opinion and
perspective
defines a bias that is stacked against a definition of events from the
perspective of minority groups and their members. Minority sources, if
consulted at all, are found less credible. Despite prevailing
prejudices and
ignorance, white journalists often think that white sources know more
and are
more ‘objective’ about ethnic groups and ethnic affairs than minority
groups
and their leaders and experts themselves. And because of widespread
discrimination against minority journalists, alternative and expert
views of
ethnic minority communities and perspectives is scarce and often
non-existent,
even in the newsrooms of Europe’s elite quality newspapers. Unlike
It is not surprising that
in such a
production context, news and opinion about non-western immigrants,
refugees,
and minorities — and in general on ethnic affairs — is hardly unbiased.
As is
the case for all outgroups, the overall discursive strategy is to
emphasize Our
good things and Their bad things, and to de-emphasize (deny, ignore,
mitigate) Our
bad things and Their good things. Such polarization, expressing and
reproducing
underlying racist prejudices and ideologies, is implemented at all
levels of
media discourse.
In the press, for
instance, this
means that negative stories about Them
are more frequent, bigger, more often on the front page, with bigger
headlines,
and so on. Besides such presentational and visual bias, we also find
syntactic
bias through the use of active sentences to emphasize Their negative
actions
and responsibilities, but passive sentences or nominalization (like
“discrimination”) with hidden agents when We
are responsible for negative actions against them (discrimination,
racism,
violence, etc.).
Most conspicuous is the
biased
selection of overall topics (semantic macrostructures). Analyses of
many thousands
of news and opinion articles in many research projects in many
countries have
consistently shown that — unlike our ‘own’ group — immigrants or
minorities
tend to be exclusively associated with negative topics and problems:
immigration as invasion, abuse of identity papers, mafias,
unemployment,
violence, crime, drugs, illegality, cultural deviance, fanaticism,
religious
intolerance, backwardness, and so on.
At the same time, their
obvious
positive characteristics are systematically denied, ignored or
underplayed:
such as the immigrants’ contributions to the economy (crucial in
construction,
agriculture, hotels, restaurants and domestic service), ethnic
diversity and
the arts, much needed correction of a very low autochthonous birthrate,
and so
on. Thus, whereas emphasis on problems is routine and daily, one seldom
finds
emphasis on the fact that
Besides the racist biases
in the
definition of main topics, also expressed in the headlines, we find a
host of
more local properties of news and opinion articles that implement this
ideological polarization in discourse. Thus, the problems and ‘threats’
of
immigration are rhetorically enhanced by standard metaphors such as
‘waves’,
and by the consistent number game of keeping count of how many
thousands are
arriving. That such numbers are not merely the expression of the usual
rhetoric
of exactness in the news may be concluded from the fact that these
numbers are never given for all those who are leaving the country — as was the case
for the millions of Spanish and Italian Gastarbeiter
in the 1950s and 1960s in Northern Europe, or the political refugees
from Latin
America in the 1960 and 1970s.
The local discourse
semantics of
racist discourse is exhibited in the news, the editorials and the other
opinion
articles by more or less subtle meanings, such as negative descriptions
of the
Others, vague expressions for Our negative properties, and of course
the usual
play of negative presuppositions and other implications that indirectly
state
what hardly can be asserted explicitly about Them.
Consistent with the
exclusion of
minority journalists in the newsroom and the lacking access of other
than white
elite sources in the production process, is the biased pattern of
citations in
the news. Ethnic events are nearly exclusively defined by Our elites,
and when
those of the Others are incidentally given the floor, it is either
because They are hardly representative (such as
extremists) or because they happen to agree with Us.
In any case, the Others are seldom speaking alone, and if they
do have a different view on ethnic affairs than We do, their opinions
are
generally ‘balanced’ by one of Us. Of course Their accusations of
racism tend
not to be taken seriously, and hence are typically censored or played
down —
and always cited with conspicuous quotation marks, that is, not as a
description of the facts, or as items of common knowledge, but as a
controversial opinion.
In sum, both in the
strategies of
news production as well as in their discursive consequences in the news
or the
opinion articles themselves, we find a consistent pattern of racist
bias,
exclusion, and the overall polarization between Our good things and
Their bad
things. Whereas the prominent topics and headlines defining ethnic
events and
ethnic Others as a problem or as a threat are most conspicuous, more
sophisticated discourse analysis has shown that such negativization
extends to
the subtle play of pronouns, demonstratives, active-passive syntax,
implied
meanings and the usual rhetorical means of emphasizing and
de-emphasizing
meaning.
Of course, the press is
not
homogeneous, and we may find differences between conservative, populist
tabloids, on the one hand, or more liberal quality newspapers on the
other
hand. But the differences are more a question of style than of content.
The
quality press no less features news on problems and threats of
immigration,
illegality, crime and violence, and especially also alleged cultural
threats.
Most obvious, for instance, is that both on the Right as well as on the
Left,
and both in the tabloids as well as in the quality press, the denial of
racism
is standard. In fact, sometimes the denials on the Left are more
vehement, because
an ‘accusation’ of racism (and of sexism) is felt to be inconsistent
with a
progressive self-image. The same is true for the discrimination of
minority
journalists and minority sources in the production of news.
Also, the press is of
course not
alone in this discursive construction and reproduction of racism, and
much of
its discourses are rather closely imported from similar text and talk
in
politics, the bureaucracy, scholarship and other domains of symbolic
power in
society. Indeed, journalists not seldom blame others, such as
politicians or
the public at large, for their topics, style and other aspect of
reporting — as
if they were passive chroniclers of the discourses of the other power
elites,
or even of that of public sphere in general.
The Spanish Press
Unfortunately, most of the
generalizations formulated above for the European press also apply to
Yet, on the other hand,
the Spanish
press also has some particular properties that sets it apart from the
rest of
First of all, there is
not,
properly speaking, a right-wing, popular tabloid press, as we know it
from the
Secondly, the history of
the
Spanish press should also be seen against the light of the struggle
against Franco’s
dictatorship, which promoted a strong democratic tradition since the
early
1970s. This means that fascism, and more generally right-wing
extremism, is
outside of the consensus in
Thirdly,
And finally, the debate in
politics, education, the press and language in
These and other factors
set the
Spanish press apart from much of the press in
As may be expected and
predicted,
fast non-European immigration has had its consequences also on the
ethnic
attitudes of large parts of the immigrant population. Although, again,
not as
strong as elsewhere in the EU, xenophobic and racist feelings have
become
widespread, and enacted in many forms of everyday discrimination and
racist
talk. As suggested, the Popular Party, led by former Prime Minister,
José María
Aznar, following the lead of the success of anti-immigrant politics on
the
Right in
Such political
developments cannot
be sustained without reproduction and help from the mass media. This
means that
national papers close to the Popular Party, such as ABC
and
The national prestige
press, such
as El País and El Mundo, as well as
the regional quality press, such as
Especially El
País, backing the current socialist government of Luís Rodríguez
Zapatero, has a rich tradition of high quality and progressive
journalism that
is largely inconsistent with explicit racism. Its strong opposition
against the
Popular Party and its earlier leader and Prime Minister Aznar also
implied
opposition against the latter’s anti-immigration rhetoric.
As elsewhere in
Similarly, during the
cartoon
affair in early 2006, El País, just
like other EU newspapers, emphasized the freedom of the press and hence
legitimatized anti-Muslim discourse, while again dramatically enhancing
radical
and violent Muslim protest around the world. Such biased reporting
perhaps more
clearly shows in what is not
reported. Thus, although the occasion would have demanded it as context
information, it did not publish background articles on racism in the EU
press,
nor detailed reports about racism and the situation of immigrants in
Racism and the Spanish
Press
From the summary of some
general
properties of the Spanish press and its coverage of immigration,
minorities and
ethnic issues, we may expect few explicitly racist articles, but a
clear
European (Spanish, ‘white’) perspective on events. The few studies on
racism in
the Spanish press confirm this prediction.[7]
It is rare to find the explicit xenophobic sensationalism we may find
in the
British tabloid The Sun, or German Bild.
Before we examine this
general
impression in more detail, let us summarize some earlier data.
Unfortunately,
the excellent press data of the Observatorio Permanente de
368 El
País
273
256
238 ABC
237 El
Mundo
Table 1. Frequencies of
articles on
immigration in four national and regional newspapers
This means that after a
steady
increase of the coverage in the 1990s, the national and local
newspapers in
2000 published on average about three articles per day on issues
related to
immigration, with El País at the top
with 4 articles per day. The topics during these days may be summarized
in
Table 2:
15%
Legislación, ley extranjería, etc.
23%
Control de las fronteras
5% Vida cotidiana (trabajo, alojamiento, escuela)
16%
Delincuencia, violencia
16%
Solidaridad (denuncias, etc.)
7%
Europa
Table 2. Topics in the
2000 Spanish
newspaper coverage of immigration.
This simple frequency list
shows
that at least in 2000 — as was the case from the start — immigration
coverage
in Spain focuses first of all on the arrival of new immigrants
(typically
framed as illegal crossings from Africa in “pateras”), on the one hand,
and the
question of papers and regularization on the other hand. Most likely a
similar
distribution is true today and for 2005, when the new regularization
law of the
new socialist government permitted millions of “illegal” immigrants to
legalize
their situation — a topic prominently covered in the press, especially
by
pro-socialist newspaper El País. Note
that the “control de las fronteras” topics not only account for the
harrowing
experiences of the immigrants at sea, but also for the actions of the
police. As
is the case anywhere else, also in
El País in 2005
To get an impression of
the
coverage 5 years later, we did a search of the data base of El
País¸ the paper that consistently
publishes most on immigration topics. In 2005 El País published
5791 articles featuring the words ‘inmigrante(s)’, ‘inmigración’ or the plural ‘extranjeros’
(we did not include the ambiguous singular expression ‘extranjero’,
because
this may also refer to ‘abroad’; obviously, the plural may also refer
to
foreigners from Europe – whereas ‘inmigrante’
in general only refers to non-European immigrants).
This includes all articles on other topics in which these words
are mentioned only in passing, but it confirms the general tendency
observed in
2000 of some 4 articles per day, and in 2005 probably much more (some
15
articles per day at least mention these words). As suggested, these
numbers
include many articles in which immigrants are only briefly mentioned,
but on
the other hand do not include the articles that refer to immigrants
only by
their country of origin, such as Moroccans (mentioned in 1481 articles,
which
of course includes reference to Moroccans in Morocco), Ecuadorians
(mentioned
in 327 articles). If we count all references to immigrants, foreigners,
Africans, Moroccans, Ecuadorians, “sin papeles”, etc. El
País may come close to 9000 articles in 2005[8].
In 2005 there are 701 one articles in El
País in which the notion of ‘racism’
(or ‘racist’) appears, although many
of these articles are about
Headlines. In order to have an idea
how many articles are
actually largely on immigrants in El País,
we examined the frequency of the words mentioned above in the
headlines, which
suggest that ‘immigrants’ are a topic of the articles. The large amount
of many
thousands is now reduced to 983 for 2005, which means about 3 articles
per days
in all sections (also international or sports), and in all regional
supplements
together (viz.,
A more detailed study of
the
headlines in the Catalan edition of January-February 2006, confirms
these
general tendencies: of 369 headlines, 85 are about any form or illegal
entry,
pateras, etc.; 38 about political reactions about irregular
immigration, 10
about false papers; but also 19 articles about discrimination of
immigrants. As
is the case for the national coverage, and different from other
countries, is
the scant coverage, in El País, of
crimes committed by immigrants. These topics rather tend to be covered
by the
conservative local press, such as the Voz
de Almería, etc.
We specifically focused on
the 70
articles in El País that had the word
‘racismo’ or ‘racista’ in the headline,
so as to see how the newspaper deals with
racism as a main topic. First we see that many (20) of articles on
racism
appear in the regional supplements, especially in
In other words, in
El Mundo
The other major national
newspaper El Mundo published 1129 articles in 2005
with the notions of ‘immigrant’ or ‘immigration’, that is, still about
3
articles per day on average — following its own statistics. Only 219
articles
actually deal with the topic as such (if we set the 95% relevance
criterion of
the newspaper). However, a search for “extranjeros”
produce a frequency of 3294 articles, so that we may assume that this
is a term
more used by El Mundo than the
expression ‘inmigrantes’ (this large number of articles on foreigners
is
reduced to 264 if we set the relevance criteria to 95%. In other words,
there
are many articles that merely mention foreigners in passing and not as
a main
topic. Obviously, the term ‘extranjeros’ may also refer to other
foreigners
than immigrants, and in a search there it is impossible to make the
distinction.
Yet, as also is the case in the media in
Unfortunately, we have no
data from
conservative ABC, whose search engine
does not seem to produce reliable frequencies (all searches add up to
the same
frequency of 400 articles). [9]
From these approximate
statistics,
we may first conclude about a prominent part of the national press that
the
topic of immigration and immigrants remains very prominent in the
Spanish
press, with at least some three articles each day — and possibly much
more in El País. Also, much of this coverage
still is about illegal entry, ‘pateras’, the police and other negative
or
stereotypical topics. Specific for 2005 is the extensive coverage of
the
regularization of undocumented immigrants. On the other hand, ‘racism’
is a concept
that may appear at least once a day in the press, but hardly ever as a
main
topic, let alone about racism in
Looking at the regional
press, in
2005 the conservative Catalan newspaper
1.
El
Observatorio ya no cree que España sea el país más racista (
In sum, as is the case for
the
national quality press, we find that also
Topics
From the observations made
above
about the frequency of specific terms in the headlines, we have been
able to
draw some provisional conclusions on the relative frequencies of topics
in the
news and the opinion articles. These simple frequency counts seem to
confirm
that the major topics have not changed dramatically in the last years:
‘illegal’ entry and border control (pateras, etc.), political reactions
to
irregular immigration, papers and regularization, and then a variety of
‘social’ topics, such as work, housing, social services, as well as
forms of
protest of immigrants, discrimination of immigrants as well as
solidarity with
immigrants.
We have also seen that the
topic of
racism in
The ‘assault’ on
After these more general
remarks
about the frequencies and topics of the coverage of immigrants in the
Spanish
press, let us examine some of this coverage in some more detail. We
shall do
this in the rest of this paper for the main quality paper, El
País, because of its prominent position as the newspaper ‘of
reference’ in the country, and because of its generally liberal,
center-left,
etc. policies and reporting, close to the socialist PSOE party (its
slogan that
it is an ‘independent’ morning paper is a form of well-known positive
self-presentation that is inconsistent with its overtly biased
reporting in
favor of the PSOE – and its government — and against the Partido
Popular and
its earlier government and leaders). More generally in my work on
racism and
discourse, I have focused rather on ‘our’ discourses, that is, the
discourses
of the mainstream elites, rather than on extremist or very conservative
newspapers, organizations, and so on. Indeed, the contribution of the
‘ethnic
definition’ by our quality newspapers, e.g., because of their influence
on the
(other) elites, and primarily the politicians, is fundamental.
If there is one story that
stood
out in 2005, it is the attempt of African (mostly young male) migrants
to enter
the Spanish city of
2.
A las seis de la mañana de ayer
se oyó un cuerno, y 250 subsaharianos surgieron de la maleza y se
lanzaron al
asalto de la valla que separa Melilla de Marruecos. Avanzaron en tres
grupos de
unas 80 personas cada uno. Portaban más de cien escaleras para salvar
las
alambradas. (…) Fue como un asalto medieval. "Es la primera ocasión en
que
los subsaharianos se muestran agresivos", relata el portavoz de
3.
300 inmigrantes logran entrar en
Melilla en dos asaltos masivos a la valla
en menos de 24 horas (El País, 28-9-05)
4.
¿Salto o asalto? Leo con sorpresa en su
periódico y escucho en los telediarios de Telecinco y la primera la
noticia de
que 70 inmigrantes subsaharianos intentan saltar la valla de Melilla,
sin éxito
y con resultado de varios heridos. La sorpresa no viene de la tentativa
fallida, ni del número "masivo" que componía el grupo. No. La
sorpresa viene de la expresión usada: asalto. Acudo al
diccionario de
María Moliner y compruebo que las principales acepciones de asaltar
apuntan al
ataque a una fortaleza o posición enemiga para penetrar en ella o
tomarla; o
bien "atacar a alguien, particularmente para robarle", o
"penetrar violentamente en un sitio para robar". (Daniel Pelegrín
Nicolás - Zaragoza)(El País,
23-9-05).
As we see from these few
examples
from a huge coverage of weeks, the dominant definition of the event is
in the
military or criminal terms of ‘assaults’ that is, in terms of violence.
After
criticisms such as the Letter to the Editor cited in example (3), the
word
‘asalto’ was sometimes replaced by the similar word ‘salto’ (jump),
which has a
less negative connotation. This sensationalist coverage of an
‘international’
assault on Spanish cities by black youths of course opens the Pandora
box of
well-known racial stereotypes, such as about the aggression and
violence of
black people. Note also the use of the metaphor in (1) about the
‘medieval’
character of the assault, because of the use of long ladders used to
jump the
high fence. As we know more generally from the association of “time and
the
other” (*Fabian, 1983), the Others are often portrayed as living in
another,
past time — as also the common metaphor of being ‘backward’ (Spanish ‘atrasado’) suggests. The same is true
for the use of a ‘horn’ to give the signal of the ‘assault’. Thus, the
African
blacks are associated metaphorically with ‘primitive’ means
(instruments ‘we’
used in ‘our’ Middle Ages). Throughout the coverage the aggression of
the
African men is being emphasized, as also a (police) source in example
(2)
suggests. Of course, in the primary coverage, only the police is the
source of
all news, and no African participants are (as yet) interviewed. This
happens
later, occasionally, in background victim-stories in weekly
supplements, namely
when the Africans have been forcefully removed by the Moroccan army and
police
and transported back to the desert (or sometimes sent home by plane).
Notice
finally the typical use of numbers in example (1), is a well-known case
of a
rhetorical number game suggesting precision and objectivity and hence
reliability and credibility of the news.
Evo Morales
The second topic in the
2005
coverage of El País that deserves
critical analysis is the coverage of the election of president Evo
Morales of
Until today the Third
World is
typically represented as less democratic than Europe — thus ignoring
the
recency and vast international destruction brought about by the fascist
regimes
in Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece, colonialism until only a
few
decades ago by several European countries as well contemporary military
hegemony
and aggression by the USA and its allies.
This also applies to
current media
and political discourse on Latin American countries, even years after
democratic elections. That is, despite changes and improvements in some
media,
also
Thus, also Bolivia is
covered much
more intensely during open conflict and presidential elections and
their
aftermath, with the stereotypical label of the “poorest country of
South
America”, but hardly with some background articles about why,
and who is keeping
Bolivia so poor, despite its resources (such as gas) — controlled by
‘our’ internationals.
The earlier coverage of
Evo
Morales, therefore, is consistent with these general principles: Less
attention
is being paid to what he has done and can do for the poorest of his
country
(and if such contributions are mentioned at all, they are disqualified
as being
‘populist’ – which means democratic policies we do not like), than to
his role
as an opponent of the role of the multinationals and their local
political
protectors. For the same reason also Morales’ association with Hugo
Chávez of
Venezuela, another pariah of Western politics and media, is enough to
marginalize him and to brand him as another populist leader, instead as
a respected,
democratically elected president, who also has a heart for his people.
His
modest background and education, as well as his role as leader of the
‘cocaleros’ are further elements in a stereotypical portrayal as it
characterized the quality press in the UE, also in El País.
Relevant for our
discussion here is
not only the typical superior and at times arrogant way the European
media
portray Third World countries and their leaders (if
they portray them at all), but also the way Evo Morales was
primarily defined as an ‘Indio’. Since the press loves to report
‘historical events’
and ‘firsts’, the election of the first indigenous president of his
country
(and one of the first in contemporary Latin America) provoked much
special
comments, descriptions, and a style of portrayal that does not
characterize the
description of ‘white’ (European) presidents, that is, of people more
‘like Us’
— though, as Latin-Americans, of course not quite like Us.
The press description of
Evo
Morales as an ‘
5.
Creo que
utilizar preferentemente indígena es una
opción razonable porque evita que algunas personas se puedan sentir
ofendidas.
No es posible obviar el dato de que este diario tiene cada vez más
lectores
latinoamericanos, sobre todo a través de Internet. Pero tampoco sería
razonable
prescindir totalmente del término indio. La redactora de
Internacional
Maite Rico, enviada especial a las elecciones bolivianas y con amplia
experiencia en América Latina, considera que la connotación negativa se
la da a
ese término el hablante o el lector. "No hay más que ver", añade,
"la infinidad de documentos en los que se habla de pueblos indios:
desde
las declaraciones zapatistas, a
This passage tells us
something
about the Defensor del Lector (DdL) and his norms and values, about the
special
envoy Maite Rico, as well as about the general policy of the newspaper
– namely
to send someone to Latin America who apparently has no idea (despite
her
experience praised by the Ombudsman) about norms in Latin America.
First of
all, the DdL accepts — after the critique of the readers — that the use
of
‘indígena’ may be ‘reasonable’. In other words, he does not agree that
is
imperative for a modern newspaper to follow the norm that one uses the
designation preferred by the people referred to. Rather, he only seems
to want
to take into account that “algunas
personas se pueden sentir ofendidas”, which contextually implies
(a) that
such persons may be over-sensitive, and (b) that they are only few,
which in
turn implies (c) that most people or most Latin Americans or most
‘Indios’
would not mind such use. More to the point from a commercial point of
view, of
course, is the argument that there are more and more readers from
The same is true for the
reporter
and her arguments. She first of all displays a fundamental ignorance
about
discourse and communication, when she claims that negative consequences
are
attributed by the speakers or the readers. She thereby ignores that
word
meanings change with their social context, and that if a word such as
‘Indio’
in Latin America is more and more associated, socially and by
indigenous
peoples themselves, with negative stereotypes, she as a journalist
should not
only know this, but also act and write accordingly. If not, she is
willingly
using offensive language. Second, her argument that the notion of ‘
The retrograde use of
terms such as
‘
Of course, the old
fashioned or
provocative use of ‘
Seemingly less relevant
too is the
way Evo Morales is portrayed. Not only are his indigenous roots and
loyalties
strongly emphasized, but as is often also the case for the (sexist)
coverage of
women politicians, there in extraordinary media interest in his
clothes, and
not only in the popular (populist?) European press. That Evo Morales
prefers to
dress in a colorful sweater and not in a traditional suit-with-tie, as
most
western politicians, is extensively covered and hence obviously
important and
relevant for the EU press. The references to his ‘chompa’
in El País range
between the usual exotism in the account of ethnic others, on the one
hand, and
depreciative negative implications — as breaking the norms of
international
political etiquette — on the other hand, as we find in one of the Latin
American
columns of Bastenier:
6.
Morales (…) que
va a los actos protocolarios ataviado con
un jersey de la gama más modesta de Galerías Preciados (8-1-06).
The
same is true for Vargas Llosa whose attacks on the “loony left” (“la izquierda boba”) is also associated
with “orgasmic enthusiasm” for the sweater of Morales (15-1-06). Javier
Torrontegui is allowed to write a whole article (8-1-06), though in the
less
serious section Gente, on the topic,
apparently of major importance for the readers of El País.
This is how that article begins:
7.
A la
pregunta de cómo irá
vestido el presidente electo de
To
such commentary on his clothes, finally, are added negative comments on
his
Spanish pronunciation, also by Vargas Llosa, who incidentally never
made it to
the presidency of neighboring
8.
Tampoco
el señor Evo Morales es
un
From
these various passages about the coverage of Evo Morales we might
conclude that
El País and its journalists and
columnists simply do not like Evo Morales and his politics — as they
also have
shown for Hugo Chávez. However, this negative coverage is different
from the
negative coverage of other, European (white) politicians they do not
like. As
is also shown by the ‘joke’ of the Spanish (conservative catholic) COPE
radio
journalist phoning Morales pretending to be Prime Minister Zapatero, we
detect
a lack of respect that is typical of sexism and racism — the other
person is
represented not only as a political or ethnic outgroup member, but also
as
inferior. The sociopolitical and conservative rejection of avoiding
‘politically incorrect’ denominations such as ‘Indio’, further confirms
this
lack of what could be called ‘interethnic correctness’ of a leading
newspaper
as El País, a crucial condition for a
newspaper in a multi-ethnic society in Europe.
The Danish Anti-Muslim
Cartoons
Let
us finally examine in some more detail some of the characteristics of
the
Spanish press coverage of the islamophobic cartoons published, in
September
The Cartoon-Affair of
February
Conspicuously
underreported in the
Cartoon Affair, and also less emphasized in the many opinion articles,
was the
role of the Affair and its coverage in the reproduction of racism —
quite
consistent with the general denial of elite racism by the press, as
signaled
above.
Also
the Spanish press covered this affair extensively, not least because it
construed the worldwide Muslim protests as an attack against the
freedom of
opinion in general, and as an attack on the freedom of the press, in
particular. Many journalists and columnists thus represented the affair
as a
prime example of the alleged Huntingtonian “clash of civilizations”,
rather
than as a straightforward case of racism in the press — a seemingly
minor
incident with a tremendous international consequences. As we shall see,
the alternative
definition of this affair, namely as a case of press racism, was found
totally
taboo and was never ever even mentioned in the media, anywhere, even by
those
who found the cartoons insensitive, or even an expression of
islamophobia.
Despite hundreds of articles on the case, and many opinions, especially
by
those who defended the allegedly attacked freedom of the press, no
background
articles appeared with analysis of the growing racism in
As
we have found before in earlier analysis of the coverage of racist
events in
the press, such events generally tend to be defined in terms of denials
or
mitigations, especially when the perpetrators are (more) like Us. As we have seen above, we might find
articles on racism abroad, in the past, in popular neighborhoods or
among
right-wing extremists, but never in
our own party, business, university or newspaper. Since journalists are
the
only professionals who control what appears in the press about
themselves, it
is hardly surprising that newspapers never
publish about racism in their own newspaper. At most, and even then
exceptionally, this may be the case for the coverage of racism of an
extremist
newspaper or TV station.
In
sum, the coverage of the Danish cartoon affair is quite consistent with
a very
solid tradition of reporting ethnic affairs in general and the role of
the
media in such affairs in particular. More specifically, and in line
with historical,
deep-rooted anti-Muslim sentiments among the European elites (*Said,
1979,
1981), we find that in the same way as many Muslims viewed the cartoons
as an
insult of their prophet, many journalists and other elites took the
affair as a
test of the cherished value of the freedom of the press. That such
freedom was
not at all under attack and no one who could potentially limit it in
Europe
even hinted at such an attack, did not prevent journalists to associate
international protests against islamophobic cartoons as such an attack.
Let us
see in some more detail how the Spanish press covered this affair.
The
dominant topics in the coverage of the Cartoon-affair are organized by
the
familiar overall polarization strategies of emphasizing Our good things
and Their
bad things: On the one hand, as we see in examples (9) and (10), a very
prominent focus on the Freedom of Expression as a major, if not
absolute,
European or Western value:
9.
El diario, el principal de
Dinamarca, publicó los dibujos en nombre de la libertad de expresión,
después
de que el autor de un libro sobre Mahoma no hubiera podido encontrar
ilustradores para su obra, por temor a represalias. (El País, 31-1-06).
10.
"La libertad de expresión no es
negociable" (Entrevista
con redactor jefe de Jyllands
Posten, El País, 1-2-06)
On
the other hand, following the logic of polarization we find an emphasis
on the topic
of the violent protests, intolerance, fundamentalism and radicalism of
the
world of Islam, propagated by dictatorial regimes. More specifically,
as we
see, as is also the case for immigration, any form of ‘outside’ action
relative
to
11.
12.
Una decena de periódicos
europeos han decidido reproducir las polémicas caricaturas de Mahoma
publicadas
inicialmente en el diario danés Jyllands-Posten, que han
provocado una
reacción virulenta en el mundo islámico y una tormentosa crisis
diplomática.
Los diarios han decidido mostrar así la solidaridad con sus colegas
daneses,
que ayer sufrieron una nueva amenaza de bomba, y defender la libertad
de
expresión. (El País, 2-2-06).
13.
La libertad de expresión es
fundamento de la organización social de que se han dotado los países
más
progresivos del planeta, y Europa en particular. (Editorial, El País, 5-2-06).
These examples show
clearly how the
event of a (European) press insult against Muslims is constructed as an
international conflict between Good and Evil, where We defend the basic
values “of
the most progressive countries on the planet” against “virulent”
reactions and
bomb-threats. That is, as is the case with one of the cartoons, the
press thus
associates, without much nuance, Muslims with radicalism and terrorism.
At the
same time, we witness the familiar move of all racist discourse, namely
blaming
the victim: those who were offended, and hence possibly would deserve
our sympathy
are transformed into the aggressor. Obviously, in such sympathetic
coverage of
their very own professional group, also the journalists of the Spanish
quality
press hardly show any discursive distance with respect to their Danish
colleagues, and thus implicitly legitimate the publication of
islamophobic
cartoons in name of the freedom of the press.
Throughout the month of
February
2006, thus, the coverage of the (violent) protests in the Muslim world
remain a
prominent topic – thus hammering home, and reproducing, the century old
orientalist topos of the violent Muslim and Arab.
The polarization between
our
democracy and freedom, on the one hand, and their undemocratic
fundamentalism
is the main framework for the cognitive and discursive construction of
this
event. The tone of the coverage and the editorials in such a case may
become
explicitly paternalistic if not arrogantly superior, as in the
following
passage of an editorial in El País,
in which the others are attributed not only violence and radicalism,
but also
being stupid and backward — as the euphemism “precario conocimiento”
suggests:
14.
Si ciertos Estados árabes
reclaman de las autoridades nacionales de los países acusados de
blasfemar
contra Mahoma una estentórea petición de excusas, debido
arrepentimiento y
garantía de que ello no volverá a suceder, es por su precario
conocimiento de
lo que es una sociedad abierta, donde la libertad incluye también caer
en el
error. (Editorial, El País, 5-2-06)
We see that in Eurocentric
and
racist polarization, negative other-presentation usually comes with
positive
self-presentation. Thus, we do not merely have a modest defense of what
‘We’
define as “Our” values, but at the same time a glorification of Our
past — an
ideological manifestation of Eurocentrism that is shared by some
intellectuals
from Latin America, such as El País
columnist Vargas Llosa:
15.
(…) ¿Puede llegar a ocurrir lo
mismo algún día en
Unfortunately, Vargas
Llosa and
other intellectuals seem to forget that the same Europe is also the
Europe of,
say, Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler and Milosevic, and the vastest genocides
committed by humans, both inside as well as outside of
16.
(…) Pero creo que la razón
profunda es más
grave y que buena parte del silencio de cierta izquierda ante este
asunto se
debe a que tiene serias dudas sobre cuál es la opción políticamente
correcta en
este caso. ¿Echarle la culpa de todo al pasado colonialista y racista
del
Occidente que por su política de humillación y saqueo de los países
musulmanes
creó el resentimiento y el odio que hoy se vuelven contra él? ¿Defender
las
actitudes de los extremistas musulmanes en nombre del
multiculturalismo?
¿Demostrar, acogotando la sindéresis, que detrás de todo esto están las
torvas
garras de los Estados Unidos? ¿O, mejor, evitar pringarse en un asunto
tan
especioso y replegarse una vez más en lo seguro, lanzando las valientes
arengas
contra la guerra de Irak y la avidez de
Although the defense of
the freedom
of the press is of course a touchstone of journalistic ideologies —
while the
basis of media power — it may be formulated in slightly less radical
terms. The
same is true for the representation of Them. Thus, a first editorial of
El País on the cartoon affair may be
interpreted as the official voice of
17.
(…) La libertad de prensa y la
libertad de expresión no deben tener más cortapisas que las que fija la
ley
para todos los ciudadanos, y quien se sienta ofendido o injuriado tiene
el
derecho a acudir a los tribunales, la única instancia que debe resolver
estos
conflictos. (…) El fanatismo es una planta que crece en muchas
religiones, pero
el mundo islámico ofrece hoy una cosecha muy extensa. (…) Creer que
sólo en el
mundo islámico existe la intolerancia religiosa sería un ejercicio
fatuo de
autocomplacencia. Pero ignorar que el integrismo religioso se expande
vertiginosamente entre los creyentes musulmanes sería ponerse una venda
ante la
realidad. (Editorial, El País, 1-2-06).
That is, freedom of the
press is
here not defined as absolute, but as limited by the law, and in
principle its
abuse might be sanctioned by the courts. In the same way, religious
fanaticism
is not limited to Islam — and hence condemned more generally. More
specific
examples of ‘our’ religion (say, from Opus Dei in
A critical assessment of
religions,
and especially of religious fundamentalism and fanaticism, is a
consequent part
progressive, atheist ideologies, and consistent with the positions of El País. However, when we examine the
total coverage of the Western (quality and popular) press of Islam, and
of for
instance catholic and protestant fundamentalism in Europe and
especially also
in the