On the relevance of mentioning the nationality of people who have committed an offense
On April 21, 2016, the Media Watchdog intervened with the authors of an article published in Editor, the Swiss media magazine. The’article, published in January 2016, focused on ethical guidelines regarding the mention of nationality in press articles dealing with crime and delinquency.
The authors conclude the article by taking two examples from the crime section of the Morning online February 10, 2016:
In one case, the relevance of the inmate's origin appears obvious, while in the other, it's unclear what it adds:
«Prison guard Angela Magdici helped Syrian Hassan Kiko, convicted of rape in Switzerland, to escape.»
«The Geneva Criminal Court sentenced a 50-year-old Turkish man to two years in prison, fully suspended, for transmitting HIV to his girlfriend.»
Since the relevance of mentioning the origin did not seem evident to us, we contacted the authors with the following message, which we sent to them on April 21, 2016:
We read your article titled «When to Mention Nationality?» in the latest issue of’Editor (01/2016).
At the end of the analysis, you propose two examples for which «in one case the relevance of the detainee's origin appears obvious, in the other we don't see what it adds.» However, despite several readings and some tests with our acquaintances, we do not see which quote the mention is «obvious» in. Could you explain in which context nationality is relevant in your eyes and what criteria lead you to affirm this?
As you point out in your article, «what needs to be assessed is whether there is a cause-and-effect relationship between nationality and crime.» A cause-and-effect relationship that is generally relatively tenuous, as criminologist André Kuhn recalls: «Nationality generally does not explain any additional variance in crime. Indeed, since the migrant population is overrepresented by young, disadvantaged men, the variable ‘nationality’ is encompassed within the others. [gender, age, socioeconomic status, education level] and does not explain any additional part of the criminality compared to the other variables taken into consideration» (André Kuh, « How is the overrepresentation of foreigners in crime explained?«, March 2013).
On April 22, 2016, we received the following response from one of the authors:
Thank you for your interest in this article. As you've surely noticed, it consists mainly of quotes from editors-in-chief and other relevant journalists. We've added these two examples at the end of the article to illustrate a distinction mentioned by several of our contacts.
In the case of Hassan Kiko, mentioning nationality «appears obvious» due to the couple's risk of fleeing abroad and the particular context of the situation in Syria. However, this can be debated, which is precisely why we used the word «appears.».
Regarding the cause-and-effect relationship, even though the sentence is not in quotation marks, it clearly reflects Dominique Strebel's point of view. André Kuhn's opinion provides a very interesting complementary insight, and I would be delighted to quote him when publishing your message in the letters to the editor.