Spain: Media and journalist campaign against racism and xenophobia

The Spanish CEPAIM Foundation has recently launched #CompromisoDesactiva (#DeactiveCommitment), a new innovative campaign that invites individual journalists and media outlets in the country to publicly show their commitment to act as key agents in the fight against hate speech, xenophobia and racism.

Through the campaign, the organisation aims to respond to a significant increase in reported crimes of hate speech and violent hate crimes based on xenophobic and racist ideology during the months prior the campaign launch.

#CompromisoDesactiva recognises the crucial role of media and journalists in combatting hate speech and the ways in which they deal with and present certain information, in particular, when it comes to stories about migrants or racialised people. The commitment highlights the value of reporting that considers an intercultural perspective and is conscious of basic human rights principles. 

Signatories to the commitment undertake to follow six different key principles of reporting, such as not to reproduce stereotypical information, expressions or images about migrants and refugees, not to use biased headlines that generate social alarm or contain biased or incomplete information and to consult all sources of information they refer to. On the project website, participants of the campaign and other interested audiences can find further practical guidelines and information material for unbiased reporting on migration. 

The Deactivates Commitment is an initiative within the project “I Deactivate, Deactivating Racism and Xenophobia”. It is implemented in collaboration with the Spanish Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration and the AMIF Fund of the European Union.