The Day of Monitoring has two tracks - research (monitoring) in cooperation with universities, and campaign (protest) as tool for empowerment. Specifically, refugee and migrant organisations work with academics to monitor the media based on mutually agreed-upon criteria. The events are designed to engage journalists, media executives, and government officials in dialogues with migrant, refugee, and ethnic minority groups. The hope is that national partners (who are still being identified as of this writing) will organise debates, presentations, and perhaps prizes to identify good and bad journalistic practice, to promote strategies for multicultural programming, and to recommended policy measures.

The results are published in cooperation with the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) and the European Network Against Racism (ENAR). In these materials, a connection is made between the media portrayal of minorities and the portrayal of their countries of origin.

Three transnational meetings of the partners in the project took place to prepare for this event, coupled with mini-seminars on monitoring methodologies, training national trainers, and mobilising partnerships, publicity, and resources. Minority NGOs with experience in involving migrant or refugee communities in actions to monitor or influence media coverage were asked to provide input on plans for the Day (see contact information below).

Media, Multiculturalism, Racism and Racial Diversity.

Online/More Colour in the Media is a project of the Dutch organisation Mira Media, which has focussed on media and minorities since 1992. In 2001, Online/More Colour in the Media in the Media launched a network of migrant, refugee, and anti-racism organisations (Empowerment and Media Watch Network). Partners in this network are grassroots NGOs that work to gain access to the media and to achieve a representative reflection of their activities and target groups in the media. Through the network they exchange tools, working methods, and practical support. For instance, On Online/More Colour in the Media is developing a handbook for grassroots NGOs who (want to) work with the media to encourage and support other initiatives designed to influence policy and practices. The handbook will be interactively developed, conceived as a collectively authored, digital work-in-progress, with network organisations reacting and contributing online through the mailing list. New organisations are encouraged to use the handbook and provide input. Fifteen of them participated in a first workshop on 'Empowerment and Participation of Migrants and Refugees in the Media'. Other activities have included a handbook outlining successful strategies and examples of good practice and a September 2002 conference entitled "After 11 September: TV-News and transnational audiences."