Dear Friends,
It goes without saying that the media shapes public opinion – both for good and for ill. This is why we work directly with journalists to improve coverage of the LGBTIQ community, as a centerpiece of our advocacy strategy. Still, homophobia and transphobia persists in the media. In some places, the media simply ignores basic rules of fairness in reporting when it comes to our community.
I am excited to tell you about two new groundbreaking publications that we hope will lead to progress in coverage of LGBTIQ people and issues by media in the English-speaking Caribbean.
Over this past year, working with five amazing grassroots groups in Belize, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, we documented a disturbing picture of homophobia and transphobia in the these countries and developed a detailed training guide to help shape more just and ethical journalism.
Our partner organizations-- United and Strong, Groundation Grenada, Guyana Rainbow Foundation, J-FLAG, and United Belize Advocacy Movement-- monitored key media outlets for over a month, and analyzed content and omissions.
We are confident the study and training guide will be instrumental in helping to make media coverage of our community more accurate and fair. Already, organizations across the world are looking to use our media monitoring template to expose bias in their countries’ news reporting.
We hope you will take a look at these publications on our website: /content/caribbean-media-training-manual
Thank you,
Jessica Stern
Executive Director