Media Muslim coverage scrutinised

Hostile coverage is driving Muslims away from the rest of society says Rageh Omaar, a Muslim journalist and former BBC correspondent now with Al-Jazeera. He blames self-proclaimed “liberals” for the negative media coverage: “I think that how you show that you really are liberal is your stance against what you perceive to be the threat of Islam, which journalists see as this monolithic backward looking, extremist threat to your liberal traditions. And I think it is just a knee-jerk reaction amongst a lot of my friends and colleagues in the media.”

BBC News, 28 December 2006

See Charlie Beckett’s piece at Comment is Free, 29 December 2006

Both of these pieces confuse the issue by portraying Islamophobic bigots like John Ware and Martin Bright as honest reporters (“tough liberals”) who are only eager to get at the truth.

See also Mukul Devichand’s article at Open Democracy, 29 December 2006

The transcript of the Analysis programme is here.