"We were the media" - BBC Outreach’s Media on the Move conference

"Our people were the media until people got radios and televisions and telephones. We were the walking people, the Pavees" - the words of Thomas McCarthy – an award-winning Irish Traveller and singer speaking and performing at BBC Outreach’s Media on the Move conference.

Thomas was talking and singing about a time when Gypsies in Ireland told the news of the day, walking from place to place and made welcome by the people they visited: the name Pavee gives a clue, its origins the same as pavement.

As a contrast, in more recent times, the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community have become separate from the media, there’s suspicion on both sides and the treatment of this community in the media has often reinforced the prejudices many of them face in everyday life.

The purpose of Media on the Move, which was held in partnership with Travellers’ Times and the Rural Media Company, was to encourage more informed coverage by the media through offering a rare chance to meet individuals from that community, outside of an immediate production or news environment. There was also the opportunity for people from the community to increase their understanding of how the media works by talking to reporters, producers, scriptwriters and the like.

This was the second in a series of conferences aimed at bringing BBC staff closer to communities they portray – the first was ‘Who Benefits? TV & Poverty’.

During the day, we shared a passion for story-telling, we also shared our ideas of what good and responsible portrayal of the community in the media should look like.

There were surprises on both sides – for those from the media, a first hand account of what it feels like to be on the other end of a harsh radio interview from Travellers’ Times Editor-at-Large, Damian LeBas: “I’ve had some really tough experiences on local radio. More than the presumption that we’re all the same, it’s the presumption that we can take anything and it’s not going to hurt us if you have someone, for example, accusing us of incredibly disgusting racial stereotypes.’

Damian also spoke about media perceptions of Travellers as transient, different from ‘residents’: “In fact, we are deeply entwined with the geography of the country and not just parachuted in. He backed this up by sharing the history and culture of the community through poetry and a stunningly beautiful film The Oldest Show on the Road. It was erudite, fascinating, inspiring, moving – a history I’d never heard before, and I don’t think many of my BBC colleagues had either.

Understandably, this was the first time many members of the community had been to the BBC. One comment was: "I wasn’t sure what to expect to be honest and I was nervous but I knew if Travellers’ Times was involved it would be safe for us, but there was no need to be nervous, I felt so welcomed and confident and listened to – and no one ever listens to us, please thank everyone at the BBC for making us feel so important."

As the conference progressed, it became apparent that this community is taking hold of the media in its own right, telling stories from their own point of view, often driven by anger and frustration at media stereotyping. Editor of Travellers’ Times Mike Doherty  introduced members of the community who were doing just that.

Betty Billington, whose family had lived for 300 years in Christchurch, Dorset, got fed up with stories in the local press about unlawful encampments and rubbish. She set up a local group involving the local authority, investigated the sources of these (inaccurate) stories and started to pitch new and different stories about the community to the local newspaper editor.

Sherrie Smith went on a media course, originally with the idea of making videos to teach floristry online to Gypsies and Travellers, part of her business. She’s gone on to write articles about the things that are important to her – things she wants everyone to know about: “I’ve written about a little Gypsy girl who wins beauty pageants, I’ve written about racism, I’ve written about the Romany resistance in Auschwitz." Sherry is just about to launch a website for reporting Romany hate crime.

And there were many other examples of this community making and changing the media – perhaps now owning the news themselves in same way as Thomas McCarthy’s forefathers did walking the paths of Ireland.

Diane Reid is Head of BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility