This week the home affairs select committee’s inquiry into hate crime turned to Islamophobia and the press. Many greeted with surprise the idea expressed by one witness: that anti-Muslim sentiment wasn’t much of an issue in the mainstream media.
.... In the past year and a half, more than 40 stories on issues related to Islam and Muslims have been corrected in mainstream national newspapers following complaints I made. If inaccuracies of a similar type on the same subject every one or two weeks do not demonstrate that there is a serious issue here, it is unclear what would.
Why does this happen though? Let us not kid ourselves. Stories that play on the public’s fears and feed their prejudices are popular, especially at a time when more than half of British people see Islam as a threat to western liberal democracy. These sentiments might well be shared by journalists at the newspapers concerned. [The Guardian] Read more
