Racism Persists in Colombian Media, Even with Afro-Colombian Woman as Vice President, Experts Say
Beatriz Valdés Correa, Afro-Colombian journalist. Winner of the Gabo 2023 Award in the text category. (Photo: Deivy Rubriche Torres
Source Latam Journalism Review
By Florencia Pagola
For the first time in the history of the Gabo Awards, a Colombian journalistic work won in the text category. The award went to Afro-Colombian journalist Beatriz Valdés Correa. She won it in a Colombia that continues to be one of the most dangerous countries in the continent for journalists. And she won it with a report published in El Espectador, which highlights the situation of Afro-Colombian women victims of sexual violence in the context of the armed conflict. Even though Colombia's vice-president is an Afro-Colombian woman -Francia Márquez-, racism is still rooted in the foundations of this society, according to experts. Given this situation, how does the media cover the facts of the Afro-descendant population in Colombia?
"The media in Colombia only, almost exclusively, cover the Afro-Colombian population when it is a complex issue, not to mention the disaster and violence," Beatriz Valdés told Latam Journalism Review (LJR) in an interview. The journalist believes that this population is underrepresented in the media agenda and offered some examples of when they pay attention to it.
This happens "when there is a high-impact event such as a major accident or when violent events occur in these populations," she said. Another aspect analyzed by the journalist is that when the Afro population demonstrates, which also happens with the indigenous population, media coverage is focused on "the impact that this demonstration can generate". For example: "if the demonstrators close a road, they cover the economic losses or the people who did not manage to get to the places they were supposed to travel to, but they do not cover so strongly, nor do they look at why the demonstration is taking place and what their claims are", he said.
The fact that the media do not cover the claims of the populations in their territories or that they normalize the violence of the armed conflict that frequently encloses the populations in departments such as Chocó or Cauca, demonstrates the racial bias they have. "There is a racist bias with the way Afro-descendant peoples are looked at. They continue with the idea that there is only poverty and violence there. It's [considered] less important because that's what happens to black people," Valdés said.
