AddThis SmartLayers

NUJ branch launches bid to stop media ‘Benefits Street’ stereotyping

NUJ MancA new guide aimed at helping journalists avoid “Benefits Street” stereotyping of people living in social housing is being produced by a National Union of Journalists branch.

The NUJ’s Manchester & Salford branch is currently working with housing associations and tenants to come up with the guidelines, which it hopes will combat “lazy stereotypes of nuisance neighbours and clichéd photos of grim streets” sometimes shown in the media.

The guide’s launch comes after the Manchester & Salford branch released a film earlier this month urging journalists improve the way they cover poverty, following on from previous guidelines produced by its members on the subject.

Rachel Broady, equality officer at the Manchester & Salford Branch, is a social housing tenant herself.

She said: “When I met tenants, it was agreed that representations of social housing aren’t the experience of those of us who live in it. We have varied lives, different types of homes, a range of jobs. We’re not the caricatures found in the likes of Benefit Street.

“Lazy stereotypes of nuisance neighbours and clichéd photos of grim streets can have real consequences: making us seem not worth listening to, ultimately denying us a voice and allowing our concerns to be dismissed.

“We’re also seen too often as demanding something we’re not entitled to. I think this is particularly apparent after the Grenfell Tower atrocity where, combined with a lack of local reporting, the legitimate concerns of tenants were too easily ignored.

“We hope this guide will inform those journalists who don’t know much about social housing, that it will be a resource for news desks and press offices and that media workers will think about what they need to know, and who they need to talk to, before they publish stories about social housing.”

The guide will be officially launched at Salford’s Media City on 14 September.