Ethnic minorities hardly visible in the Dutch media
Anita Rachman, Anta Kusuma & Jackson Simanjuntak
*A training assignment for RNTC
Place where Van Gogh was killed/Photo from Wikipedia
WHEN a Moslem extremist gunned down the Dutch film director, Theo van Gogh, in November 2004, media in the Netherlands then turned to look for knowledge and perspective about Islam, Sharmila Badloe, coordinator of the Media Prof Network with Mira Media, said.
“Most of the media [here] only have the ‘white’ perspective, they don’t know about Islam. But then they think [to write a comprehensive story on the murder] they need to know about it,” she said.
To promote the importance of involving professionals from various ethnic backgrounds in the mainstream media is the core work and objective of Mira Media established since 1986.
Mira media has committed to bring diversity and pluralism in the media organizations in the Netherlands. Because even in a modern country like the Netherlands, pushing media companies to employ qualified ethnic media professionals is not easy.
“Intelligence does not have something to do with discrimination. You can have a high IQ, but you can be still very narrow-minded. Discrimination, it’s something you cannot totally get rid of”
Sharmila estimated the number of media professionals from non-western background in the Netherlands media is very tiny, “less than five percents,” she cited.
