Noam Chomsky in his book Media Control highlights how media have been turned into a propaganda a tool by elites to serve their causes. This might be equally true during pandemic times when fight against COVID-19 has many interest groups as in the Donald Trump-WHO-China triangular blame game in which traditional media took sides of their interest groups. The picture was, however, contrary in social media when they came forward to expose the follies of the governments and brought to light the sufferings of the less privileged and marginalised in countries like Lebanon.
The stark reality was brought to notice by Anne-Marie Jazzar el-Hage of L’Orient-Le Jour, Lebanon, during a webinar organised by Delhi-based Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism (GRFDT) recently. While narrating the role of migrant works in Lebanon, Anne-Marie said that her country had some 250,000 unskilled labourers from Philippines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and other African countries. They are subject to the kafala system or tutorship that puts them under the control of their employer. A large number of these migrants work in gas stations, factories and construction industry. Migrants who come from Southern countries are subjected to discrimination and racism by the Lebanese authorities, local people and some media organisations. They also face abuses and lack of protection, especially the domestic workers who are not covered under the labour law. And this situation has worsened with the pandemic. However, things are starting to change, very slowly, thanks to the joined forces of media, NGOs and civil society, Marie said.
Marie shared that Lebanon faces a terrible economic and financial crisis. And the COVID crisis has aggravated the situation. People have lost their jobs. Some of the employers are not able to pay their foreign workers in USD, because they cannot even find dollars in the exchange market. Some Ethiopian domestic workers have no place to live because their employers abandoned them in front of their embassies. They were left without money and without passport. Some Bangladeshi male workers went on strike for a few days, because their salaries were cut following the financial crisis and the confinement measures.
Also Read : How Media Framed the Good and the Bad of COVID-19?
Speaking on media, Marie said that traditional media covered these COVID-19 stories, but had a slanted 
approach. Only stories, which had some sensational value, like death of a domestic worker, the death of an employer, a protest march, a riot, a scandal or a corona contamination case could find their way into media. Some of the media went to say that Lebanese people have lost their jobs because of foreign workers. This is not true because Lebanese people refuse to work as domestic workers in agriculture or in the construction sectors. These media (and among them some TVs) also considered migrants as a threat to the Lebanese population during the time of COVID, because most of them, like Bangladeshi workers and Syrian refugees,live in communities with poor hygiene. They can easily catch the virus and transmit it.
They felt that it was necessary to confine them or to lock them up to stop them from mingling with the nationals. Such news coverage related to hate and discrimination was unfortunately very frequent.
Highlighting the difference between traditional and social media, Marie said that the new social media work on a different perspective, which was quite close to what we call the Thawra, the Lebanese revolution. They fight for a nation based on social justice, where all people are equal, and have equal rights. Some of them are print papers while others are online and print both (like ours L’Orient-Le Jour). Some of these are only online, blogs, NGO publications and even researcher publications. They are not only active, but are very aggressive on social media. And they denounce the hate speech against migrant workers and refugees. Their commitment to the cause of migrants is the starting point not only of a campaign of solidarity, but also as a means to push the authorities into action, Anne-Marie said.
Dr. Abhay Chawla, Visiting Professor, Indian Institute of Mass Communication, new Delhi, was of the opinion that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought the migrant issue to the fore. It was P. Sainath who first raised the issue of workforce migration from rural to urban areas and the process continues unabated till the breakdown due to the pandemic. The COVID-19 has reversed the migration process, especially for the time being. Dr Chawla said that the pandemic has posed a peculiar challenge to journalists as FIRs have been registered against them for reporting on COVID-19. The way media report news needs to be looked into as they rush in to produce more and more news mechanically, thus undermining the accuracy of reporting and facts. Dr Chawla citing an example of a 13-year girl, Jyoti, who had travelled from Haryana to her hometown Darbhanga in Bihar with a sick father as pillion rider on a bicycle. The news was reported first by the BBC. The same news was rehashed and written with the girl’s age having changed from 13 to 15. The news was not descriptive about her suffering and her other ordeals and dealt superficially. Such kind of table reporting, Dr Chawla said, has posed a serious challenge to media reporting on the pandemic.
Also Read : Despondency Amidst COVID-19: Concerns of Returnee Migrant Workers
Dr Chawla said that while reporting on COVID-19, media were short in coverage as well as facts, and did a window-dressing which otherwise needed an elaborate narrative. Using the methods of Word Cloud, he said that the report on Jyoti had some common words in all the reports, thus showing a media bias. The common words included Paswan (the caste name of Jyoti’s father), Bihar, Hindu, etc. The story could also be accused of political overtone, as Bihar Assembly elections are due in 2020. He also highlighted the use of male metaphor like “lion-hearted” for Jyoti, which showed gender insensitivity.
Shabari Nair, Labour Migration Specialist, International Labour Organisation (ILO), South Asia, spoke about the tone of the message in the news coverage and the emphasis on opinion instead of facts.
He was participating in the discussions following the presentations by the panelists. The question of media projection based on religion during the pandemic coverage also came up during the discussions. Participants mentioned that one religion was targeted in the media for the spread of the virus. Dr Amba Pande raised her concern about work migrants who instead of migrating to their native places chose to stay in metropolitan cities. They had to face lot of problems, especially related to food and paying rent, as they had lost their jobs. This marginalised section was completely neglected and was not covered by the mainstream media, she added.
Prof Binod Khadria, formerly at JNU, brought forth his observation related to the role of media working as Fourth Estate during the pandemic crisis. He said that the media, which hitherto had been more interested in elite workers, had for the first time shifted its focus on work migrants who generally are deprived of a voice in the media. It will have a long-term impact as it brought the starkness between the two labour forces. While warning about the dangers of fake news and paid news, he lamented the absence of tongue-in-cheek caricature of RK Laxman and Sudhir Tailang, who with their caricature and cartoons would aptly describe the situation in a few words.
Prof Kamala Ganesh, Scholar in Residence, Shiv Nadar University, highlighted the humanitarian aspect of the pandemic and said that while media paid lots of attention to humanitarian aspects, they also contrasted their coverage in the form of class division within the migrant workers. She said that media reproduced the stereotyping—migrants as a separate class of people inhabiting slums and working in unorganised sector as determinant along with family background and class division.
While commenting on pandemic situation in Sri Lanka, Prof C.S. Bhat, formerly at Hyderabad Central University, said that labeling returnee migrants as ‘COVID Bomb’ was adding fuel to the fire in a situation, which was getting worse day-by-day. He said that media projected the pandemic as an endgame for the workers, which is not true. Prof Bhat added that the wish of migrant workers to die at the place of their origin, has often been debated as the ultimate reality of nomadic life and the COVID-19 had brought many to their native place.
(This is the second part of the GRFDT webinar on ‘Media Narratives on Migrants during COVID-19).
