#IFJBlog - Migration: 'Behind every number, there is a life and a story'

Codou Loum is a Senegalese journalist specialising in covering migration. As a participant in the INFORMA project, of which the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is a partner, she was able to take part in a training course for trainers about reporting on migration. Editor-in-chief of the community radio station Oxy-Jeunes FM, she has just finished teaching a training course on 'Contemporary migration realities' at the Institut des Hautes Études des Communications Sociales (IHECS) in Brussels, Belgium.

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Credit: Codou Loume

IFJ: How did you develop your expertise in migration issues, and how did your career path lead you to specialise in these issues?

CO: When I first joined Oxy-jeunes FMas a young reporter, I often went out to report in Thiaroye, Yarakh or Kayar [editor's note: coastal towns in Senegal]. Every time a pirogue (do you mean a dug-out canoe or a barge, here) capsized, or a fisherman stopped fishing after a week or two, parents and wives would storm the radio to express their dismay and concern. There was a tendency in the media to blindly trust the figures we received from the foreign press, particularly Italian and Spanish.

Personally, I was interested in everything to do with migration: press articles, dispatches, reactions from the authorities, press releases and ambassadors' statements. I also took part in a lot of meetings organised by civil society organisations, non-governmental organisations and ministries for Senegalese living abroad, which always raised a lot of questions and involved a lot of analysis.

How has the INFORMA project helped you in your work as a journalist, but also in your career and your own training?

The INFORMA project has helped me a great deal by complementing work already started with other partners on the processing of information on migration issues. We started by building our capacity through practical exercises, supported by a guide, then took part in an information trip with Belgian and Italian colleagues, met Senegalese compatriots in Italy and Belgium, and took part in co-productions with colleagues elsewhere ... All of this has added value to our work and enabled us to exchange ideas with colleagues based in these host countries, while working on a theme that is notoriously complex.

The other element was the training of trainers. Since 2016, when I started working on migration as part of a partnership with the Institut Panos Afrique de l'Ouest, this is the first time that I have been trained to train peers. As journalists, we have to take account of the local opportunities that exist in these areas of departure, make the most of them, and give more of a voice to local players, interviewing them in the languages they understand and in innovative formats.

In your training courses, whether in Senegal, Belgium or perhaps other countries, what are the major challenges that journalists face when covering migration issues, and how do you help them overcome these obstacles?

You have to know how to arouse public interest, influence public debate, be creative and original in the way you handle information, vary journalistic genres, diversify sources and choose reliable sources.

Information about migration must first and foremost be a life story. We need to go beyond figures and political statements, and move away from the factual and the event-driven.

Media coverage of migration can sometimes be marked by stereotypes. How can we avoid reproducing these prejudices and ensure fairer, more balanced and ethical reporting?
We are at a turning point where we are being led to believe that everything to do with migration seems to be a source of stereotypes. That's why we must always contextualise, explain, decipher and deconstruct these stereotypes. And that's where I invite my colleagues, here and elsewhere, to give themselves the means to cover this issue in a balanced way.

How can they do this?

By presenting the advantages as well as the disadvantages of all forms of migration, by providing those who read, listen to and follow us with the information they need to form their own opinions, and by presenting a picture of migration that is as close to reality as possible.

If there were one essential journalistic rule to remember about covering migration, what would it be?

That of respecting the dignity of those who decide to migrate, of humanising the way in which information on migration is handled, because behind every figure lies a life, a story.

As a trainer, what impact do you hope to have on the way the media deal with migration issues in the years to come?

My little experience as a trainer has shown me that the media often influence the perceptions, behaviours and attitudes of the communities that follow, listen to or read them. I have come to realise that I have a heavy responsibility to ensure that any information or opinions I disseminate never contribute to fuelling hatred and prejudice.

I was recently able to share my experience in Brussels with IHECS Masters students. We discussed the vocabulary used in coverage of migration and mobility in general. It was the first time that these communication students had taken the time to look at the differences between migrants, their different profiles, the reasons why some end up in Belgium or elsewhere in the world, the laws and international conventions on the free movement of people and migration policy, and the closure of certain borders.

During the debates and pleas, I often came back to the case of Senegal and other West African countries, where many young people leave in search of a better future, to study, or simply as adventurers who have the right to leave any country, including their own, and to return to their country (Universal Declaration of Human Rights).

There was a lot of questioning about the social and cultural realities of those who leave their countries and have no opportunity to tell their stories, because they are reduced to inhumane, sensationalist, event-driven, dramatising media coverage, which is limited to the arrival and often does not look at the causes. The debates were very rich and promising, prompting some participants to do some research on the themes involved, in order to better understand what was at stake. It was an enriching experience for me, coming from a country that has lost many of its sons and daughters on the migration route.

To find out more about the INFORMA project, click here.

Published

18 December 2024

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