[ad_1]
A complaint that Television New Zealand used a discriminatory term in a news story about the annual relocation of sharecroppers has been confirmed.
The Broadcasting Standards Authority found that TVNZ violated standards of discrimination and denigration by referring to the annual movement of sharecroppers across the country “as a gypsy day.”
The author said that the term “Gypsy Day” was “offensive to one of our smaller and less visible ethnic and cultural communities”.
It says that the use of the phrase “presents us as a nation that is willing to discriminate against minority ethnic and cultural communities.”
He added that the alternative term “moving day” could have been used.
TVNZ did not support this complaint, on the grounds that the term did not meet the threshold necessary to conclude that it encouraged discrimination, the colloquial use of the term in the agricultural community, and that it did not intend to discriminate against a sector of the community.
The BSA said the term was not used with any intention of discrimination or directed at the Roma community, and that it was commonly used colloquially to refer to the movement of sharecroppers and their livestock throughout the country.
However, the BSA said that the term was recognized as a racial slur with growing recognition of its offensive nature, and that there was an alternative term “moving day” that could have been used.
The complaint was accepted, but no order for the payment of costs was issued.
