Why the British media is responsible for the rise in Islamophobia in Britain

Less than 0.5 per cent of journalists in the UK are Muslim. No wonders so many misleading stories make the cut

Once again, a newspaper’s integrity has been found wanting as the press regulator, IPSO, judged the Daily Star Sunday’s headline, “UK mosques fundraising for terror”, to be “significantly misleading” following a complaint lodged by myself. The paper clarified its error on page 2, noting that UK mosques were actually “not involved in any way”. This came just a week after The Sun was forced to acknowledge that its headline “1 in 5 Brit Muslims’ sympathy for jihadis” was similarly misleading.

Such inaccuracies are not restricted to the tabloid press. The Times, for example, claimed Muslims were “silent on terror”. This allegation has since been unequivocally rebuffed not only by Home Secretary Theresa May but also by senior counter-terror officers such as Neil Basu and Scotland Yard’s former anti-terror chief Richard Walton.
It’s not just misleading stories which are the problem - we also consistently see articles conflating the faith of Islam with criminality, such as the headlines “Muslim sex grooming” or “Imam beaten to death in sex grooming town” - the latter of which resulted in the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police being “appalled” and writing an open letter criticising the paper.

Sensationalism and scaremongering about the apparent threat posed by Muslims is also widespread. Just look at headlines such as: “BBC puts Muslims before you” (Daily Star); “Halal secret of Pizza Express” (The Sun); “Muslim vote could decide 25 per cent of seats” (Daily Mail).

So what, you might say? We rightly live in a country that cherishes the freedom of the press, and it’s not unreasonable for newspapers to use sensational headlines to sell papers. We know that there is an undeniable and serious threat from many groups identifying as Muslim that strike terror into the hearts of millions. But the inaccurate stories, as well as those that are re-framed to align with the far-right “othering” of Muslims, have real-world consequences.

Recent research by the University of Cambridge has shown that mainstream media reporting about Muslim communities is contributing to an atmosphere of rising hostility toward Muslims in Britain, corroborating the findings of an Islamophobia Roundtable in Stockholm two years ago. Claiming that the media has played no role in the growth in Islamophobia is no longer a tenable position.

More than half of Britons see Islam (the mainstream religion, not Islamist fundamentalist groups) as a threat to Western liberal democracy. Over 30 per cent of young children believe Muslims are ‘taking over England’ and hate crime against Muslims continues to rise, up by 70 per cent in the last year, according to the Metropolitan police.

Of course, the government needs to take the problem of Islamophobia seriously and we all need to hold the media to account better, reporting mistakes and inaccuracies. However, editors of newspapers also need to own up to this problem within the media and take meaningful steps to resolve it.

According to research presented at the Muslim News’ Conference on reporting Islam last year, there have been improvements in the language that is being used, but religious illiteracy remains rife within parts of our newspaper elite. Special training for journalists working in areas touching on Islamic faith and culture, and guidelines for sensitive topics, are now a must-have for any serious paper.

Research from City University in London shows a huge under-representation of Muslims in the media: less than 0.5 per cent of UK journalists are Muslim, compared to almost 5 per cent of the national population. This lack of diversity is likely to be further magnified at more senior positions. A more diverse workforce, however, is likely to improve coverage and reduce the likelihood of misreporting. I am aware of specific instances where the mere presence of Muslim journalists in editorial meetings made a real difference in ensuring more balanced reporting.

To improve diversity, there needs to be greater outreach on the part of media organisations to bring in talent from all backgrounds, through diversity programmes, paid internships and fast-track schemes to proactively close this gap.

Finally, given the apparent inability of the press to self-regulate, there needs to be more effective regulation. Stronger deterrents would prevent stories that are just plain wrong from making into print or online. Papers should not be able to get away with “clarifications” that do not admit wrongdoing without “due prominence”. A significantly misleading front page headline needs to be corrected by an equally sized front page apology as well as a financial penalty.

I expect that the independent review of IPSO currently underway would cover these ideas and hope that all those interested, feed into that review. And, among many potential improvements to the Editor’s Code of Practice,
incorporating Recommendation 38 from Lord Leveson’s report is a key way to help tackle the abuse of minority groups by some sections of the media: “The power to intervene in cases of allegedly discriminatory reporting, and in so doing reflect the spirit of equalities legislation”.

Avoiding regular smears about Islam or Muslims and the conflation of the faith of Islam with criminality is a simple request of fairness, not asking for favours. It is not too much to ask of the nation’s editors.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/why-the-british-media-is-responsible-for-the-rise-in-islamophobia-in-britain-a6967546.html



Very true, it's all very well having freedom of the press, but that shouldn't be freedom to lie and manipulate.

Maybe there would be more uk Muslims in journalism if there weren't so many of them in prison for being criminals...!?

Oh, never mind that the papers have shown to be lying Tommy, you just come up with another lie.

I think it's altogether stupid, to say the media is 'responsible for Islamophobia'.
If that's true then it's responsible for every thing that it reports and how people feel about it. I find the media is sometimes biased one way or another, but it's usually pretty even.

You honestly think the press is even?   Don't know what papers you have been reading.  In the OP they quote case after case that they have lied and manipulated.  They aren't in the least even.

sassy wrote:You honestly think the press is even?   Don't know what papers you have been reading.  In the OP they quote case after case that they have lied and manipulated.  They aren't in the least even.

The telegraph and Guardian is pretty okay I reckon. I don't like the mail and the express lies about the weather even when one can clearly see the weather!

That made me laugh!   Unfortunately too many people believe every word of the Mail, the Sun and the Express.

The problem haunts most of the media and does need to be addressed -- in this video, Chimamanda Adichie calls it "the danger of a single story." Basically, when only one issue is ever reported in the media in relation to a certain group of people -- as in Muslims and terrorism -- it gives people the impression that's all that goes on in the Muslim world, people killing each other all the time.



People need to be critical of the media in a way most don't seem to realize -- to bring into their consumption of the news the awareness that the media doesn't exist to tell us how things are day-to-day in other parts of the world or even in our own cities. The media (and I've said this dozens of times now) exists to highlight the unusual, extreme and noteworthy -- at least for the most part.

It's part of the definition of "news." I got a good one in my first class in my journalism studies:

"Dog bites man" is not news. (Dogs bite people sometimes, it's not unusual.) "Man bites dog," on the other hand, is news.

sassy wrote:Oh, never mind that the papers have shown to be lying Tommy, you just come up with another lie.

OK... you tell us the truth then...?


Tell us % of uk population that are Muslim...?


Tell us % of uk prison population that are Muslim...?


Tell us where I have lied in my earlier post...?

Ben, if your post is true, and I believe you're right, then why are "conspiracy theories" such?
Aren't they the stories we might need to look at too, if you're saying that the media is only telling us 'half the story'?

Remember when I was first doing social studies.  Case pointed out 'dozen of arrests made near football ground', so every would think that the only trouble was around there.  In fact, it was the only place that there were police to make arrests, trouble in the rest of town went unnoticed.   Never trust statistics because they depend on the basis they are made what result they get.

that is true
I can see quite a difference in the way things are reported in the Uk press compared to here.
the Uk press in much more negative and 'fear driven'.
and not just about Islam.

every new thing seems to be a threat nothing is an opportunity

funny how it matter sooooo much when its Muslims

and yet the title and content could be altered quite legitimately to describe LEGAL LICENCED gun holders and how they are treated by a lying sensationalist press.....

Most people are like sheep that's why Veya.

I have even seen the same methodology applied to anglers....

Lord Foul wrote:

funny how it matter sooooo much when its Muslims

and yet the title and content could be altered quite legitimately to describe LEGAL LICENCED gun holders and how they are treated by a lying sensationalist press.....

the UK press is very sensationalist and as sassy said (no accusing me of racsim )
a lot of brits have the brains of sheep.

you are a panicy flighty lot...

probably the lack of snakes and spiders
or at least things to kill you, keeps ya on ya toes and keeps things in perspective.

I made the sheep comment
You need glasses old fella

veya_victaous wrote:

Lord Foul wrote:

funny how it matter sooooo much when its Muslims

and yet the title and content could be altered quite legitimately to describe LEGAL LICENCED gun holders and how they are treated by a lying sensationalist press.....

the UK press is very sensationalist and as sassy said (no accusing me of racsim )
a lot of brits have the brains of sheep.

you are a panicy flighty lot...

probably the lack of snakes and spiders
or at least things to kill you, keeps ya on ya toes and keeps things in perspective.
 

Yep, I reckon being brought up in Singapore with snakes and spiders and coconut beetles pinging around, and being taken to Chinese New Year at a young age with all that mayhem and mixing with folks of every background going, and having bombs go off around me, made me very slow to get wound up and hysterical, especially when Indonesia started letting of bombs there when I went back to live the second time.  Kinda makes the UK tame.

one reason I would restrict the press to printing either ONLY verifiable truth

OR

with a suitable disclaimer

the results of traceable (in a court environment ONLY) investigative journalism

NO "opinion"
NO "speculative" journalism

and liability for unlimited compensation if they smear an innocent person....

eddie wrote:Ben, if your post is true, and I believe you're right, then why are "conspiracy theories" such?
Aren't they the stories we might need to look at too, if you're saying that the media is only telling us 'half the story'?

I'm not really saying the media's only telling half the story. I'm saying the media's only telling the one story out of 100 that is unusual enough to attract an audience.

Not that I'm saying conspiracy theories should be tossed aside without consideration. I think they should either be verified or debunked, in either case with a ton of evidence and logic.

Ben_Reilly wrote:

eddie wrote:Ben, if your post is true, and I believe you're right, then why are "conspiracy theories" such?
Aren't they the stories we might need to look at too, if you're saying that the media is only telling us 'half the story'?

I'm not really saying the media's only telling half the story. I'm saying the media's only telling the one story out of 100 that is unusual enough to attract an audience.

Not that I'm saying conspiracy theories should be tossed aside without consideration. I think they should either be verified or debunked, in either case with a ton of evidence and logic.

Hmmm well the "one story out of a hundred" is still enough to suggest that among the other 99, there lies some stuff we might have needed to know...and perhaps that's where some conspiracy stories/alternative truths, are.

eddie wrote:I made the sheep comment
You need glasses old fella

So you did my mistake

i have/had a stye, so my vision is not the bast at the moment

veya_victaous wrote:

eddie wrote:I made the sheep comment
You need glasses old fella

So you did my mistake

i have/had a stye, so my vision is not the bast at the moment

Neither is mine. I have reading glasses but don't wear them.
Have to keep enlarging my screen and muttering about everyone on here using the standard font size

veya_victaous wrote:

eddie wrote:I made the sheep comment
You need glasses old fella

So you did my mistake

i have/had a stye, so my vision is not the bast at the moment

either

get some vitamins down you and stop living on takeaways
or
stop shagging kangaroos.........

or both........

eddie wrote:

veya_victaous wrote:

eddie wrote:I made the sheep comment
You need glasses old fella

So you did my mistake

i have/had a stye, so my vision is not the bast at the moment

Neither is mine. I have reading glasses but don't wear them.
Have to keep enlarging my screen and muttering about everyone on here using the standard font size

wilful blindness.....you will be joining the corbyn party next.......

I actually think I look intelligent with them on.
Just can't always find them. Truly.

Lord Foul wrote:

veya_victaous wrote:

eddie wrote:I made the sheep comment
You need glasses old fella

So you did my mistake

i have/had a stye, so my vision is not the bast at the moment

either

get some vitamins down you and stop living on takeaways
or
stop shagging kangaroos.........

or both........

first time i had one, very annoying

Got a face full of transmisison oil last week that i think caused it, a very dirty blown tranny
now my Audi is dead

veya_victaous wrote:

Lord Foul wrote:

veya_victaous wrote:

eddie wrote:I made the sheep comment
You need glasses old fella

So you did my mistake

i have/had a stye, so my vision is not the bast at the moment

either

get some vitamins down you and stop living on takeaways
or
stop shagging kangaroos.........

or both........

first time i had one, very annoying

Got a face full of transmisison oil last week that i think caused it, a very dirty blown tranny    
now my Audi is dead

PERV