Accusations against Caucasians after conflict in New Moscow violate journalistic ethics

In most cases, there is no need to indicate the nationality of conflict perpetrators, except for the crimes motivated by nationalism and xenophobia, the journalists interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" believe.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of Chechnya, commented on the incident in the "Novaya Moskva" (New Moscow) district of the Russian capital, where a group of young people beat up two men, one of whom was carrying a small child. Kadyrov said that special services should find the provocateurs, who had mistakenly treated the attackers as natives of Northern Caucasus.

Nadezhda Azhgikhina, a journalist and director of the PEN-Moscow, treats the Ramzan Kadyrov's appeal as incomprehensible.

"It's not clear why state servants have turned to the problem right now. In my memory, the media have been discussing the links of ethnicity with crime for 25 years already. And they cannot solve it in any way, since a complete ban on specifying one's nationality in news bulletins not only violates the freedom of speech, but sometimes simply does not give a chance to tell about the essence of the problem. I mean crimes motivated by nationalism and xenophobia," Ms Azhgikhina told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent on November 8.

However, according to her story, often there is no need to indicate the nationality of the parties to the conflict, although not all the media adhere to this ethics. "Media often neglect this, chasing a sensation or indulging laymen's curiosity, which, of course, only contributes to the assertion of harmful stereotypes like 'most crimes are committed by migrants' or 'Caucasians are prone to violence'," Nadezhda Azhgikhina has stressed.

In the event of the above conflict in the New Moscow, it was not necessary to indicate the origin of the attackers, says Margarita Lyange, the president of the Guild of Interethnic Journalism.

"Now, the society is reacting very painfully to such incidents for a number of reasons; therefore, people start looking for information about their nationality. Yes, these were, to put it mildly, not very well-mannered people who behaved disgustingly. But it makes no sense to indicate their nationality in this case," Ms Lyange has concluded.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on November 9, 2021 at 05:10 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.