Trans Media Action Workshop with Journalists & BBC

Investigating ways to improve how trans people are portrayed in the media

Workshop Three - London

Time: TBC

Working with journalists and the BBC

Aim

- To deepen media institutions’ and journalists’ understanding of trans issues through the creation of safe and useful points of contact, both on the web and through physical training space.

- To engage more trans people online (including negative voices) with constructive debate around how trans issues are reported and understood by the public.

Trans Media Watch has been awarded with seed funding from Channel 4 and the BBC to carry out this work. On Road Media is very excited to be their delivery partner.

How

Trans Media Watch (supporting the media to report trans issues more sensitively) and On Road Media (supporting diversity and inclusion in the media) will work together to:

a) Pilot a series of workshops with a cross section of media professionals which will inform the design of a multi-platform engagement strategy

b) Set up a pilot web space where conversations between journalists and trans people can be had in a safe and constructive way

c) Compile a full funding proposal for a 3 year project roll out based on the learning during the pilot phase

Click here for an example of the workshop agenda.

Background

Research shows a dearth of understanding and empathy when it comes to trans people amongst the general public and media professionals alike. The aim of this work is to realise innovative ways of improving this situation by designing workshops with journalists themselves and by tackling, head on, the negative trans voices online by empowering them to support our work.

We want to resist the temptation of designing “Trans 101” training for journalists; the tick-box kind of workshops where we inform people what terms are and aren’t politically correct. Instead we want to move towards more opportunities for dialogue and engagement that will be of more use and more interest to media professionals.

We also want to look at ways of harnessing negative voices online both outside and within the trans community as we acknowledge that trans groups can often appear hostile to non-trans people, which prevents opportunities for constructive engagement.  We will set up a safe pilot website where journalists can meet and chat to trans people in a constructive way, that will be both informative and a potential source of news and programme ideas.

Throughout this process we will also gather information and ideas to design a multi-platform strategy to engage media professionals with trans issues, and the wider trans community, using the web, face-to-face training and mobile applications. This will form part of a wider project which will take place over 3 years.