Hate speech in the media was discussed in Yekaterinburg

November 9, 2006 in Yekaterinburg, in the House of Peace and Friendship, a round table was held at which representatives of national communities, scientists and heads of foreign diplomatic missions tried to analyze what can be done to improve relations between the peoples living in the Sverdlovsk region, and what hinders this improvement . The participants accused the journalists of provoking an aggravation of relations between peoples.

Tatyana Merzlyakova, human rights ombudsman in the Sverdlovsk region, said that the media " "seek to separate our peoples, add fuel to the fire .

Yulia Grekhneva, deputy director of the Interethnic Information Center, agreed with her, and she announced the results of monitoring reports from news agencies in Yekaterinburg. Based on the monitoring, conclusions were drawn that among the texts on the ethnic theme, materials with a negative assessment predominate, mainly about criminal activity.

Valery Amirov, lecturer at the Faculty of Journalism of the Ural State University, noted that today the media are "subjects of market relations and are forced to publish what sells well . " Information about crime, on the other hand, is one of the most popular among readers.

The assembled journalists noted that the sample on the basis of which the analysis was made does not allow for an objective picture of the coverage of national topics "even in news agencies, not to mention the entire spectrum of media in the Sverdlovsk region" .

Marianna Fadeicheva, Doctor of Political Science, leading researcher at the Institute of Philosophy and Law of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, noted that journalists often draw completely incorrect conclusions, and sometimes even make gross factual errors in covering interethnic relations. According to M. Fadeicheva, this is due to the total illiteracy of the inhabitants of the Russian Federation in this area. The doctor of political sciences noted that the course of ethno-political science is taught in Yekaterinburg only at the faculty of political science of the Ural State University. While education of tolerance, according to Lyudmila Shevchenko, director of the Press Development Institute, should be started at school and even in kindergarten.

The meeting was summed up by Leysan Idrisova, the host of the Bashkir program on the ATN channel, who noted that "we must live like good neighbors, and not tolerate each other . "

Sources

• How long can we tolerate each other? We need a new approach to solving the problem of interethnic relations // Ural publicity monitor. 2006. November 12.