Examination of Witnesses (Questions 680-681)
11 FEBRUARY 2004
MR TREVOR
PHILLIPS, MR
DHARMENDRA KANANI
AND MS
SANDY PITCHER
Q680 Mr Cummings: Do you believe anything
can be done to promote a more mature, positive approach to race
relations in the local media? If so, what?
Mr Phillips: Yes. I think there
are two things. I think it would help, first of all, if local
journalists actually met people from some of the communities on
which they report. I am a journalist myself and I think that often
people write stories on the phone: they write what they have been
told. They do not visit the tower block in which there are supposed
to be hordes of asylum seekers; if they did, they would note that
probably there are no asylum seekers, or, if there are, there
might be one or two families. By the way, in one of the cases
I went to a place and nobody could tell me who the asylum seekers
actually were. So, although there were these terrifying monsters,
nobody could actually identify them.
Q681 Chairman: It is a plea for journalists
to do their job better. Do we need more regulation of what goes
into local papers?
Mr Phillips: Unless they do better,
we will.
Chairman: On that note could I thank
you very much indeed for your evidence. Thank you.
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