Media tips and guidance
Supporting journalists with guidance from our expert staff, people with lived experience and media professionals.
Media tips for working with people seeking asylum and refugees
The British Red Cross, BBC journalist and trainer Jo Healey of Trauma Reporting and One World Media have teamed up to create a set of tips to guide journalists in using a trauma-informed approach to interviewing refugees and people who are seeking asylum.
Finding the "human interest story” is the bread and butter of all good journalism but so often the story of why people seek asylum in this country lacks the most important thing - the voice of someone who is actually living through it.
Finding these stories is tough – journalists face the challenges of access, language barriers and building trust with the storyteller, dealing with them in a way that doesn’t inflict further harm as they relive traumatic events, and protects the journalist themselves as they listen to the story and decide which parts of it to share with a wider audience.
I hope these tips and discussion will build understanding and share best practice on how to work with people who have experienced trauma, so their complex, emotive and compelling stories can move audiences to a greater level of understanding and prompt positive change.
Former journalist Bex Gilbert, head of news at British Red Cross