Fair play: Refugee and asylum seekers in Scotland - A guide for journalists

This guide aims to improve the quality of asylum debate in the UK by providing journalists in Scotland with essential information to enable high standards of reporting. It provides quick easy reference to contacts, topics and information sources.

The media has a major role to play in our multi-cultural society. It also has certain duties in ensuring responsible reporting on issues of asylum, refugees and immigration.

Without the dissemination of accurate information, our society will struggle to establish satisfactory levels of democracy and accountability of those in power. Journalists are essential to that process and if their work is not carried out with maximum use of truth and accuracy then public life is in trouble. A conscious decision to distort the news is an attack on truth. That includes exclusion or censorship of issues in the media either for political or commercial pressures.

This updated guide is one of a series of publications which goes a long way towards enabling journalists to cover the issue of refugees and asylum seekers in a balanced and truthful manner. The initiative in producing this booklet by Oxfam is welcomed and supported by the NUJ as a useful resource in covering such an important subject.