Supporting minority ethnic communities to tell their stories

In this blog, Kevin Burns, Project Officer at NWCN, reflects on the challenges of community workers engaging with the media, and the responsibilities involved in supporting minority ethnic community groups.

Members of the African Caribbean Community Network at Drive 105 Radio Studios, Derry.

I’m doing a practice radio interview, and something about the pressure of the moment—simulated though it is—suddenly prompts me to describe my work more succinctly than usual: “It’s not about us—”

I’m at the Drive 105 radio studios in Derry with members of community groups from the Filipino, African-Caribbean, and Islamic communities. I’m managing a communications workshop being led by journalist Suzanne Rodgers—it’s part of NWCN’s project supporting community groups from minority ethnic backgrounds. We run the project collaboratively, so the groups themselves decide what areas they want to work on.

Speaking with the media was a recurring theme in our early conversations—the groups told us how they’re regularly expected to comment on political issues like immigration or racist hate crime, when they’re trying to talk about something completely different. One person told us how video bloggers would approach, point a phone-camera at their face, and subject them to racialised questioning—the rest of the group nodded in recognition, showing how ordinary this kind of abuse is.

This range of racialised questioning on social or mainstream media—and sometimes even on the street—is happening more often. Northern Ireland continues to suffer from outbreaks of racially motivated crime, from the racist rioting stemming from Ballymena over the summer of 2025, to the pernicious intimidation the groups tell us they’re regularly experiencing.

"One person told us how video bloggers would approach, point a phone-camera at their face, and subject them to racialised questioning"

It isn’t wrong for journalists to seek the views of people from affected communities, but the groups tell us that this one-dimensional media attention—however well intended—can make it harder to do the community development work they care so deeply about: “I went on to talk about our family fun day, but then he starts asking me about racist graffiti!”

That’s why we’re offering this training to community groups from minority ethnic backgrounds—the kind of media training that’s usually exclusive to public figures—so they can tell their own stories, their own way.

In a preparatory workshop last week, Suzanne explained some common interviewer strategies, like playing devil’s advocate “Some people would say”, deliberately misunderstanding the point, or simply changing the terms of the conversation completely. We discussed strategies for refocussing on our subjects—we’re there for our own causes, not to make the show entertaining!—and reflected on what our core messages actually are.

Now gathered at Drive 105, Suzanne takes everyone, individually or in pairs, into the recording studio while the rest of us listen from an adjacent room. Inspired by conversations with the groups last week, Suzanne poses the aggressive questioning they actually encounter in real life—and plays the disruptive interviewer with aplomb: “But aren’t you taking jobs away from Derry nurses?”, “Some people are worried about extremism in your community.”

I know many of them feel nervous, but it doesn’t show: the interviewees recognise the disruptive patterns, and in their own ways refocus on their chosen subjects. The word “confidence” keeps coming up in later feedback, and one person summarises their learning succinctly, as “how to focus on-topic and keep things within the boundary even when things get escalated.”

"The kind of media training that’s usually exclusive to public figures—so they can tell their own stories, their own way.

We often criticise politicians for ignoring questions, and answering their own questions instead—but I think we should understand that journalists don’t expect politicians to answer their questions directly, if at all. They know public figures receive media training to deal with adversarial questioning, so they attempt to disrupt that training—with adversarial questioning. It’s a closed loop.

Conversely, the community development skillset is centred on finding common ground. Suzanne tells me after my own practice interview that I started out “too polite” toward her roleplay as a mischievous interviewer veering off-topic. This professional ‘politeness’ may stem from the way community work is structured—we’re incentivised to find agreement, rather than argue a point.

This difference matters to the groups I’m working with: they’ve shown me how minority ethnic communities can feel spoken-about, not spoken-with, and I think one-dimensional media attention can reinforce this feeling. That’s why I’m careful to emphasise that I don’t represent these organisations, or speak for their communities, but support them in their own decisions.

All this is what I’m thinking about when Suzanne asks me, channelling her inner radio-provocateur, “But what right do you have to 'strengthen' minority ethnic community groups? Isn’t that political?”

I am finally impolite enough to ignore the question, and make a point of my own—“It’s not about us, it’s about them!”