Since the Web Team opened this blog, our colleagues have looked on, intrigued by an exercise which reveals EP officials as real people rather than the euro-automata of popular myth. And sure enough, some want in. So, although this is, and will remain, the collective blog of the web team, we will be delighted to welcome the occasional guest blogger with something to say. Today no less a figure than the deputy spokesperson of the EP, who has had it up to HERE with some coverage of Parliament.
Over to you, Jory!
British media and the Misses
British media really get up my nose sometimes. Like a pack of bloodthirsty hounds they will throw themselves at everything that moves, without having properly looked at it let alone recognised it. And some media in other countries blithely copy this utterly silly and often mucky tabloid stuff. Whatever happened to “check, check and double-check”? Or “audi alteram partem – hear the other side”?
Friday afternoon I got an e-mail from someone at the Daily Telegraph in London: whether the European Parliament wished to comment on a statement made by one of its members that the use of “Mrs” and “Miss” was to be banned in the Parliament. I quickly checked what this was about and left a message on his mobile phone asking him to call me back. (Of course it was a man.) He didn’t return my call. Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story, right?
The "offending" leaflet (photo: Pietro)
Sure enough: in the Sunday Telegraph appeared a story spluttering about an over-the-top and outrageously politically correct measure taken by the Parliament to ban all forms of address or words describing a profession which refer to a person’s gender. The next one or two days, reams of other papers all over the British isles followed suit and then were copied by media in other countries. Through a modern-day-version of Chinese whispers the story in Latvia became that the Parliament had voted on a directive banning the use of “Mrs” and “Miss” in all EU countries!
So what was the real story? By request of its political authorities, a working group of civil servants had formulated some guidelines and suggestions to help staff, especially translators, with the difficulties they often encounter with the widely divergent usage of gender-specific words in an environment of 23 different languages and 27 different cultures. In Dutch, the word for “Miss” has become completely obsolete. Even my 22-year old daughter is addressed as Mrs in Holland. But if a woman is called “Mademoiselle” in France, that is nothing to be upset about and can even be perceived as flattering. In English, the use of “chair” is generally preferred over “chairwoman” or “chairman”. In German and French, by contrast, feminine forms have developed for professions which were traditionally male: “Kanzlerin”, “Prêsidente”.
The UK was after all the birthground of this wonderful tradition so necessary for a healthy democracy which was serious journalism
So, in line with similar guidelines used at Unesco and other international, multilingual organisations, the advice by the EP working group to civil servants was to use gender neutral words, where possible and practical. No bans, no dictates. And, as always, MEPs are free to use the words they want, which will then by faithfully translated by the Parliament’s translators.
I deplore the unthinking, Pavlov-like way that British media deal with such topics – in the case of the European Parliament that is anything, really – because the UK was after all the birthground of this wonderful tradition so necessary for a healthy democracy which was serious journalism.
Marjory van den Broeke
http://www.ep-webeditors.eu/2009/03/guest-blogger-british-media-and-the-misses/
@Bruno
My heart never sinks when journalists call. On the contrary: I wish journalists would call more often to check their facts. Recently, at a debate in Brussels on the crisis in the media, Flemish editor-in-chief and journalist Yves Desmedt told the story of how someone published a story (without calling him) that he was leaving his newspaper De Morgen and how within an hour the same story appeared on 48 different websites! I admit I totally relate to this, for it is precisely this which makes my heart sink. One newspaper publishes an unchecked story and it spreads like a bushfire. But, of course, equally heart-sinking are journalists who do call and then completely ignore what you have told them because it doesn’t fit their story even if that is incorrect.
On the pension fund: I cannot judge of course what other information you have had and therefore if the information I have given you was less or more relevant. I do know that I have replied to several of your mails and messages and have so far been able to reply to your queries.
To say that the Parliament is secretive I find bordering on the ludicrous. If there is any organisation or institution in the world where never ever remains a secret, it is the European Parliament. In very rare cases, the press service can indeed not give out certain documents as they are confidential – but that has never stopped others from doing so….
I think Writing for (y)EU is a really good initiative. I agree with Nosemonkey that many more people in the weird world of EU officialdom should take the plunge.
Jory could be a good example. She gives as good as she gets. I guess I am one of those callers that make her heart sink.
I am not going to comment on her thoughts above – it was one of my colleagues who did the gender story (which I thought was rather fun) so I had better tread carefully.
But coming from the other side there is a problem. The European Parliament’s authorities are a bastion of secretive, sometimes paranoid, behaviour – especially the over powerful bureau, which often seems to conduct its affairs independently of MEPs.
Over a few weeks I have been trying to find out about shortfalls and a possible bailout of the second pension scheme for MEPs.
Some of the answers I received from officials have been disingenuous to say the least. Others have been positively misleading.
We waited before doing the story until we had documents and had spoken to the people (MEPs on the whole) at the heart of it all. Others did not. None of the relevant information I used came from the press service.
Jory is welcome to deplore terrible types like myself and our restless search for stories. But, let us remember, she represents an institution that often does its utmost to make sure that stories are not published at all – regardless of the facts.
[...] Steve added an interesting post today on Writing for (y)EU | Guest blogger: British media and the MissesHere’s a small reading… with the difficulties they often encounter with the widely divergent usage of gender-specific words in an environment of 23 different languages and 27 different cultures. In Dutch, the word for “Miss” has become completely obsolete. … [...]
Haha so true, but you have to remember that the average reading level of the Sun is that of a 9 year old.
Makes it difficult for then to explain why the European Court of Human Rights is not part of the EU…
If any more colleagues fancy giving blogging a shot, tell them to get in touch with either me or just about any of the other long-running EU bloggers, and we’d happily help them get set up and give them a few pointers.
One of the (many) problems with the EU’s entire communications strategy is that there is hardly any sense of the personalities of the “Eurocrats”, making the whole thing seem even more remote and inaccessible that the interminable jargon. There’s also (currently) very little in the way of commentary on EU affairs from insiders – be it researchers to MEPs, commission officials, whatever – available on the internet.
That’s where this initiative remains a good one – but we need more.