What role does the media play in the national debate around migration?

The role that the media plays in national debates about migration is one of the themes explored in our No Turning Back: Seven Migration Moments that Changed Britain exhibition, and a subject that has sparked a great deal of discussion and debate. To what extent does coverage of migration by the media shape and influence perceptions and debates around migration? Or is our media merely reflecting and reporting on views and debates that are already being had across the country?

We convened a panel of journalists and researchers in May 2018 to discuss these questions – and more.

Click ‘play’ on the Soundcloud module below to listen:

Timings:
0’00–4’20 Intro by the Migration Museum Project
4’20–34’55 Intro by Sunder Katwala and panel discussion
34’55–1:09’30 Q&A with the audience
1:09’30–1:20’00 Concluding remarks

Speakers:
Liz Gerard, winner of the independent blogger of the year at the 2017 Comment Awards and former Times night editor, who contributed a display to our current exhibition charting all of the front-page migration stories published in national newspapers throughout 2016

Jakub Krupa, UK correspondent for the Polish Press Agency

Abdulwahab Tahhan – raised in Aleppo, Syria and now based in the UK, Abdulwahab is a Syrian researcher at Airwars with the assistance of the Refugee Journalism Project.

Chair:
Sunder Katwala, director of British Future and former journalist. He was general secretary of the Fabian Society thinktank from 2003 to 2011, and was previously a leader writer and internet editor at the Observer, a research director of the Foreign Policy Centre and commissioning editor for politics and economics at the publisher Macmillan.