- Some commentators have compared the invasion in Ukraine to crises in other countries.
- In one instance, a CBS reporter said Ukraine is "civilized" compared to countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.
- Groups like the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association have called on reporters to check their implicit bias.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine resulted in a sadly familiar sight of thousands of people fleeing the violence – a sight mainly seen in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Middle Eastern and African countries in the past few decades.
However, for some watching the latest crisis unfold, reporting on the chaos showed a double standard.
Remarks made by CBS foreign correspondent Charlie D'Agata over the weekend were one example that prompted pushback from other reporters and policy figures. In a live segment from Kyiv, D'Agata said Ukraine was "a relatively civilized, relatively European" place, unlike countries such as Iraq or Afghanistan.
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"But this isn't a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades," he said. "You know, this is a relatively civilized, relatively European – I have to choose those words carefully, too – city where you wouldn't expect that or hope that it's going to happen."
Observers – including the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association – noted that remarks by D'Agata and other media reporters comparing the crisis in Ukraine to others in the Middle East did not meet journalistic standards and projected implicit biases.
"AMEJA condemns and categorically rejects orientalist and racist implications that any population or country is 'uncivilized' or bears economic factors that make it worthy of conflict," the organization said in a statement. "This type of commentary reflects the pervasive mentality in Western journalism of normalizing tragedy in parts of the world such as the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. It dehumanizes and renders their experience with war as somehow normal and expected."
D'Agata on Saturday apologized for his remark.
"I spoke in a way I regret, and for that I'm sorry," he said in a segment. D'Agata said he was attempting to convey that Ukraine unlike other countries hasn't seen "this scale of war" in recent years.
Mahdis Keshavarz, an AMEJA board member, told Insider the group's statement wasn't meant to detract from the plight of Ukrainians but instead to hold journalists accountable for biased commentary.
"This is an attempt to hold journalists accountable, to do their jobs properly, and to raise the bar of how reporting is done. And that's what is fundamental, because it's a disservice to the Ukrainian people who we stand in full solidarity with, and it's a disservice to the countless other people who are on borders elsewhere in the world, including in Poland but aren't Ukrainian or have the luxury of being European," Keshavarz said.
She added that it's an attempt "to kind of shine a light and hold a mirror to these newsrooms to say: 'listen, your staff is Middle Eastern. You have access to people and if you don't, you need to diversify your newsroom, but you'll also need to really look at your own biases and what's happening here and then do your job properly.'"
It's not just reporters making xenophobic remarks in the face of this crisis. The New York Times reported that on Friday, Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov said his country would join a growing list of European nations opening their doors to Ukrainians fleeing. However, while speaking with reporters, Petkov highlighted the differences between these refugees compared to previous ones.
He said these migrants were "Europeans," and "not the refugees we are used to," adding that they're "intelligent" and "educated" and unlikely to spread terrorism, the Times reported.
"There is not a single European country now which is afraid of the current wave of refugees," Petkov said.
Keshavarz said over the past few decades repeated wars in the Middle East have caused desensitization to the crisis happening there.
"We have been dehumanized to an extent where the assumption is that one, we're not civilized," she said, adding that these remarks have even come from reporters who spent years covering and living in the Middle East but still don't see the region as a civil place.
"Two is that I think there's become this implicit bias and people make the assumption that we are inherently violent and therefore we're used to it," Keshavarz added. "That's just something that's part of the fabric of our nations or the fabric of our societies. And that's just a fallacy, but what it is showing that's very deeply concerning is that this mentality is so pervasive in these newsrooms that these articles and these statements and this kind of commentary makes it by unchecked."