Media tips and guidance

Supporting journalists with guidance from our expert staff, people with lived experience and media professionals

Media tips for working with people seeking asylum and refugees

The British Red Cross, BBC journalist and trainer Jo Healey of Trauma Reporting and One World Media have teamed up to create a set of tips to guide journalists in using a  trauma-informed approach to interviewing refugees and people who are seeking asylum.

Download media guidance (PDF).

To launch this guidance, British Red Cross is hosting a panel event for journalists and media professionals with One World Media, as part of their Global Reporting Summit 2021. 

On Tuesday 12 October 2021 (16:00 - 17:00 UTC+1), join host Bex Gilbert, head of news at British Red Cross, and panelists - BBC journalist Jo Healey, this year’s One World Media Refugee Reporting Award winner Nadja Drost, Channel 4 News home affairs correspondent Darshna Soni, and a refugee from the VOICES Network - for practical tools to use with collaborating to report on migration and refugees. 

Tickets are £14 for the full two-day Global Reporting Summit programme. 

Find out more and buy tickets. 

Former journalist Bex Gilbert, head of news at British Red Cross, says: “Finding the “human interest story” is the bread and butter of all good journalism but so often the story of why people seek asylum in this country lacks the most important thing - the voice of someone who is actually living through it.

“Finding these stories is tough – journalists face the challenges of access, language barriers and building trust with the storyteller, dealing with them in a way that doesn’t inflict further harm as they relive traumatic events, and protects the journalist themselves as they listen to the story and decide which parts of it to share with a wider audience.

“I hope these tips and discussion will build understanding and share best practice on how to work with people who have experienced trauma, so their complex, emotive and compelling stories can move audiences to a greater level of understanding and prompt positive change.”