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It was back in March that I was first contacted. Would I be willing to help with a group called Dale Farm Solidarity campaign on behalf of the residents of Dale Farm? I knew about Dale Farm.

It was an Essex-based Traveller site, comprising mobile homes and caravans, inhabited by about 86 Irish families that the local authority wanted to evict. More than six months on, and the question is whether public relations has helped or hindered the cause?

To answer that question, it is first necessary to consider the background to Dale Farm, and offer some historic context.

The roots of this dispute date back to 1994 when the Conservative government removed a statutory duty on local authorities to provide Traveller sites. The onus, the government said, was on Gypsies and Irish Travellers to buy the land on which they wished to establish sites and so ease the pressure on the public purse.

Two years later, following the government's ruling, an Irish Traveller family bought the former scrap yard at Dale Farm, adjoining a Gypsy site that had already been granted planning permission. It was situated within the greenbelt zone around Basildon town.

As is the nature of the beast, government policies change and back in 2005 Basildon Council began the process to evict the growing number of Travellers for not having planning permission for dwellings on the land. The then prime minister Tony Blair intervened, and a two year reprieve for Dale Farm's residents was granted.

No sooner had the reprieve ended, and the Council again voted to evict families living at Dale Farm. Legal challenges followed. The High Court ruled that Basildon Council's actions were unlawful but that judgment was overturned in the Court of Appeal. The Farm was due for eviction.

When I joined the campaign back in March, the only tools at our disposal were a WordPress website, Facebook group, Twitter account, an email list of journalists and a dedicated mobile number for media to call.

We started an e-campaign that built up awareness, motivated supporters to take action (a number of protest events were held), and relayed news, views and comments speedily. The prime aim of the campaign has been to halt the forced eviction and to persuade those with power over the issue, to negotiate a solution that does not make the 86 families homeless.

We made sure that all media releases were factual with footnote references to provide evidence for any claims that are made (there are a few Cambridge University academics within Dale Farm Solidarity), and put across the views of named Travellers. Sometimes a supporter's point was aired. (All of Dale Farm Solidarity's media releases can be viewed at: http://dalefarm.wordpress.com/). We also received support from the actress and political activist Vanessa Redgrave CBE, who has campaigned for the Dale Farm Travellers for years, and more recently Paddy Doherty, winner of Celebrity Big Brother, and himself an Irish Traveller.

It wasn't just the celebrities who supported our cause. Catholic and Anglican bishops from the diocese, Jewish rabbis, local schools, United Nations officials and parliamentarians were all persuaded to speak out against the eviction.

But Basildon Council stands ready to forcibly evict the 86 families that live there. Their bailiffs are camped out in an adjoining field with hired bulldozers.

Police stand by to uphold law and order and the right to peaceful protest. The council has raised £18 million from their own funds and grants from central government to carry this out. They brought in a highly experienced communicator from Westminster Council to oversee their public relations operation. The political leader of Basildon Council, Tony Ball, is their spokesperson, with media backing from their local member of parliament John Baron. To Basildon, this is about the enforcement of planning regulations.

On the other side

Squaring up against the council is a community - a recognised ethnic group under UK law - that, due to prejudice and discrimination, has traditionally remained closed to outsiders, especially the media. Apart from My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding (and there was a significant backlash from the Gypsy and Irish Traveller communities to the broadcast of this series which they thought painted an inaccurate picture), journalists and producers have found it very difficult to gain insight into the lives of these people. To the Dale Farm Travellers, this is about their community, culture, homes, education of children and human rights.

The Travellers' story

Fast forward to today (this article is being written as the High Court rules Basildon Council can remove caravans from 49 out of 54 of the plots) and you have a media savvy group of women Travellers from Dale Farm who have built a relationship with the journalists covering the issue, make compelling 'sound bite' statements that are broadcast on TV or reported in newspaper articles, are just as comfortable answering questions in a studio, and have a group of supporters willing to help them put across their point of view; their story.

The Travellers talk about their sense of injustice and the racism that they believe underpins the council's actions. They speak about the impact that being moved on to the road, with no place to go to, will have on their lives, and particularly on the schooling of their children and the health of the more vulnerable and elderly members of their close-knit community.

How did this transformation come about? There is no public relations consultancy advising the Travellers and handling the media. There isn't even a budget for PR activity. Just meagre funds to keep the vegan kitchen going to feed supporters on site and the embedded journalists. There is a group of passionate, highly committed people from across the board, and I count myself as one of this group, who are helping the Travellers to issue media releases, undertake outreach activity using social media and contact journalists.

Aside from communications, volunteers from the Gypsy Council, Dale Farm Residents Association and many individuals provide support to the Traveller families and help to build (and pay for) the legal action against eviction. But the on-camera media work is organised by the Travellers themselves. They feel empowered to do so. In what other circumstance would you get five sisters, dressed in identical bright blouses, sitting calmly in the ITV This Morning studio just days before possibly being evicted from their homes, answering questions in a polite, humane and compelling way? Five women who had never attended school but feel passionately that their children and grandchildren should have that opportunity and wanting at all costs to keep their community together, even if that means moving to another site.

Impact

Overall, the views of the Dale Farm Travellers have been covered by newspaper and broadcast media. It is no surprise that some newspapers have been sympathetic to the Travellers' point of view, while the tabloids have been more hostile. But interestingly, it is the middle ground: seeing The Daily Telegraph often report sympathetically about Traveller issues is warming to me. Research I undertook last year on the relationship between the media and Romany people found that The Daily Telegraph was fairly negatively in its reporting on Romany issues.

Cormac Smith, the interim head of communications at Basildon Council, accused the Travellers and their supporters of 'fighting on emotional terms' and claimed that they 'use women and children to tell their story'.

He admitted that the campaigning threatens to seriously damage the council's reputation. The forced eviction of 86 families is an emotive issue, especially when those to be evicted come from an ethnic group that is often despised by the majority population. It is the Traveller women who have seized the moment and when a microphone is put in front of them, have given honest and heart-felt statements. They are among those who will be hit hardest by the eviction. Their statements have been backed up by factual, referenced media releases. Isn't that ethical public relations?

And speaking about ethics, is it really good practice for the council to leak the contents of eviction notices to the local media before they are delivered to the residents? The Dale Farm Travellers first read of the date of the eviction in the Basildon Echo, hours before letters setting out the terms of the eviction were delivered to them. One local journalist seeking to interview a Traveller introduced herself with the opening line, I'm from Basildon, but not the Echo. Too close a relationship between a council and a media outlet can also lead to reputation issues for both parties. It isn't just an active public's views that can damage an organisation's reputation.

Clearly, the example of Dale Farm shows that the balance of public relations influence no longer automatically rests with those that have the most money, be they governments or major corporations. Given a topical issue, the simple campaigning instruments of email and social media, some good people-related public relations work and the balance shifts to a fairer debate.

A lost cause? Whatever ultimately happens at Dale Farm, one thing is clear: there is now more understanding (even, dare I say it, among some of those who write racist comments on Twitter and in online news articles) of Gypsies and Travellers, their lives and the issues they face. The final word to Mary, a resident of Dale Farm, Maybe, with all the people that have come here from the settled community and from all over the world to support us, maybe this is the start of the civil rights movement for Travellers.

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