The Press and Roma

The German paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung – short FAZ – was forced to remove a picture on one of its articles after critique from the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma.

In FAZ’ November 1st issue, a photo showing a mountain of rubbish on Gutleutstrasse in Frankfurt am Main was used to illustrate the report “Fighting environmental crime more effectively”. In the caption, the focus was set on the Roma minority, although this had no relation to the text next to it. Romani Rose, the chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma commented: “Here a global crime is highligheted and the selection of images conveys that the Roma minority is involved in these environmental crimes through street garbage.” On Tuesday, the FAZ exchanged the picture for a photograph of EU Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius. Below the text, the addition was added: “This article appeared at times with an image that was not appropriate to the topic. We changed the illustration.”

This highlights how choices of pictures in articles in the press convey and further existing stereotypes regarding Roma.