Gypsy and Traveller people are more than used to being represented in either exotic and romantic, or more usually, negative and demonising ways. The recent programmes under the 'Big Fat Gypsy Weddings' type banner were, even for us, a new low.

Our members' confidence that they could be treated fairly by the media has been wiped out by it. So the Media on the Move event, which myself and one of our younger members attended, felt like a genuine attempt at creating change.

There my colleague Ellen Teresa met Jane Birch who invited us to visit the Look North studio in Hull where Jane is the Editor. I have appeared a couple of times, by remote link, on the programme when they have covered issues to do with unauthorised encampments by Gypsy and Traveller people.

I am happy to do this, it is my job. But I am also very keen that the direct voices of Gypsy and Traveller people are heard and that more and more individuals have skills and confidence to speak up for themselves, so it seemed like a very good idea to be able to meet the programme makers and presenter in person.

Our members were interested in the visit but very wary that they might have to 'be on the telly'. Jane and I agreed that this visit was not for that purpose and we were able to assure the group that only film or pictures that were acceptable to everyone would be published.

We wanted to film the visit but again we agreed that this would only be for ourselves as a memento of it and for us to learn from. So, with this agreed, but still feeling quite shy, we went to Hull.

What a great welcome we received! We spent time in the actual studio, learning about the cameras and the autocue and talking about interviewing techniques, thinking about responding to awkward questions and understanding what the programme makers want.

Maisie joked that she would like to be the weather presenter and we learned about how that section of the programme comes from Leeds. We were able to meet a video journalist and to watch the programme being broadcast live from the gallery where all the technical stuff happens.

At lunch more members of the programme team joined us for a 'Q&A'. Gypsy and Traveller people are a small minority in the UK so it is perhaps understandable that many journalists really don't know much about us, beyond the usual stereotypes. Lots of useful information was shared, the 'awkward' questions were asked, and answered (rubbish, crime, tax, and so on).

So will our members be leaping to 'be on the telly' instead of myself next time Gypsies and Travellers feature on the programme?

Possibly not, yet. However as a first step on the way this visit certainly has raised confidence and interest. For myself I am happy to keep talking about the 'issues' and helping the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ to present balanced reporting.

However, knowing that nothing breaks down barriers like people working alongside each other, what I'm really excited about is the possibility that one of my colleagues might one day be making the news, operating the camera or presenting the weather!

The Media on the Move conference explored the past, present and future portrayal of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. It was held by ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Outreach and Travellers’ Times, which is a magazine and website for people in the communities and those who work with them.

³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Outreach & Corporate Responsibility brings the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ closer to its audiences - particularly those audiences we have identified as harder to reach - with face-to-face activity, community support and staff volunteering.

People had stories to tell of media misrepresentation, broken promises, and of harm done to them as a result.  Yes, there is the ongoing travesty – as they see it – of Channel 4’s My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.

Elsewhere, it was pointed out the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ and others often use words like ‘Travellers’ and ‘locals’ as binary opposites, as though it is impossible to be both.

Damian Le Bas of The Travellers’ Times described being asked to contribute on local radio, of waiting and listening on the line as caller after caller made derogatory or unsubstantiated claims about his community.  By the time he was asked to respond, he felt goaded into anger.

‘Once bitten, twice shy’, goes the old saying.

People from Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities told they feel as though they have been bitten, bitten, and bitten again, to the point where any relationship of trust with the media is near to impossible.

My team and I know this to our cost. We run the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳’s youth outreach cohorts. We find young contributors from across UK political and social spectrums, particularly from harder-to-reach communities, and connect them with programme-makers.

Across four iterations of our project in the last three years, we have completely failed to find any young person from a Gypsy, Roma or Traveller background who was willing to be included.

We reached out, we invited in.

No luck. No one would come forward. No one trusted us.

A few years ago, a colleague and I made a Radio 1’s Stories documentary with the rapper Professor Green, hearing experiences of young people who had survived suicide attempts.

Elsewhere, I’ve recorded mums talking about how it feels to be bathed, toileted, or psychologically supported by their young carer children. Other mums have opened up to me about being physically and emotionally abused by their children.

All of these are difficult stories; the kinds of stories you can only tell if you can establish and maintain a strong relationship of trust with your contributor. I would argue that they are the kinds of stories we need to hear, if we want to understand modern Britain.

These stories can stop you in your tracks. When well handled, by the likes of Michael Buchanan or Fi Glover (and the teams around them), they can be raw, powerful, captivating - in short, brilliant.

However, if we screw up our dealings with people who have chosen to share these kinds of experiences with us – perhaps by riding roughshod over how they wish to be portrayed, by taking for granted what it has taken for them to share their experiences on air, or by breaking promises either made or implied – we shatter that trust.

In so doing, we scupper any chance of those individuals or communities ever talking to us again.

We have a lot of work to do to build a working level of trust with the country's estimated Gypsies, Roma, and Travellers.

And if Media On The Move showed us anything, it was a willingness from both sides to get started. The very fact that the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ was hosting the first ever dedicated event to discuss these issues was warmly welcomed.

There were other positives to build on, too.  ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ drama was praised, for having well-drawn, in-depth, relatable Gypsy characters, as opposed to caricatures or one-dimensional cartoon-villains.

On a more everyday scale, we were asked always to capitalise the word Gypsy or Traveller in copy, when referring to ethnicity, just as we would words like French or Chinese. One ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ producer enquired about a familiar pitfall; when captioning or introducing someone in a programme, what words should we use to describe them?

The response was delivered with a wry shrug: “Ask them. Go with whatever they tell you”.

Media On the Move was about building bridges between Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ and the media. It is often hard to define success in matters of ‘trust’ or ‘community relations', but in this instance I can give one concrete example.

I went back to Edinburgh at the end of the day with contact details in my pocket for a young Traveller woman who is happy to be approached for our next ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Generation project.

After three years getting nowhere, I call that progress.

 

³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Outreach & Corporate Responsibility brings the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ closer to its audiences - particularly those audiences we have identified as harder to reach - with face-to-face activity, community support and staff volunteering.

Held in partnership with Travellers’ Times, a magazine and website aimed at Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, and with Rural Media, an award-winning media production charity, the tone at first was sombre.

“I’ve seen the depth of prejudice and racism Gypsy families face on a daily basis,” said Nic Millington, who runs Rural Media.

Then followed a beautiful film, , by poet , editor-at-large of Travellers’ Times, outlining the proud history of his and the wider community which goes back through the centuries; a history of the slang names they have been called down the years from ‘untouchables’ to ‘animals’.

Between 1850 and 1950 was a golden age for the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, but mechanisation took many of their farming jobs and they had to look further afield to find new ways of making a living.

As we covered the event on Twitter someone gently pointed out that using capital letters for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller ‘would go a long way.’

Said Damian: “If you are Irish or Inuit - you expect your identity to have a capital letter. I want to get the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community recognised as a proper ethnic group with its own history, language and culture.”

We changed it.

During a very lively series of creative sessions to debate how the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities could find new ways of telling their stories in the mainstream media the ideas flew thick and fast.

What about a soap opera? A life swap programme? A documentary about being a gay Traveller? Anything to dispel myths, build trust and represent these communities as they really are.

During a Q&A session led by the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳’s David Jennings, Head of Region for ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ West Midlands, Damian Le Bas revealed why it is often difficult to get someone from the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community to comment on a story.

“People don’t want to be racially abused on air, it’s not nice. There’s a presumption that we are all the same and we can take anything. There’s a lot of laziness. Two minutes Googling will tell you that we have our own history and our own languages. This is well documented. “

Damian’s wife Candis translated Romany for Peaky Blinders series three: “ I could get emotional about that. People like it and there was a real commitment to get it right,” he said.

One of the highlights of the day was a fantastic performance from award-winning Irish Traveller folk singer and story-teller who thought that their ancient history as the Pavee or Walking People had been ‘totally ignored’.

“I’d like to see positives, because there is so much negativity,” he said.

Opening the conference Diane Reid, Head of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Outreach, said she hoped everyone would be open to new ideas and have ‘changed a bit’ by the end of the day.

I know I have.

 

Tweets from the conference used Twitter hashtags: #³ÉÈËÂÛ̳Outreach and #MediaOnTheMove  with ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ coverage from and  

 

³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Outreach & Corporate Responsibility brings the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ closer to its audiences - particularly those audiences we have identified as harder to reach - with face-to-face activity, community support and staff volunteering.