HOW TO HANDLE MEDIA BIAS AGAINST ISLAM

By Moin Qazi, Nagpur India

.The sudden wave of interest in Islam across the world seemed to commence just after September 11, 2001. The   Western media, television as well as print, devoted reams of paper and time slots to report incidents ranging from stories of conversion to Islam and the booming sales of copies of the Quran. Somewhere along this line, Muslims and the media became a hot topic of discussion at various forums.

Headlines are sensational or distorted and reporting is often deeply racist. This impacts directly on the lives of Muslims. Some of the stories that are emerging are painful and disturbing. From sharia law, “secret halal” scandals, the burqa, hijab, so called “honour” killings, sex grooming gangs, trojan horses, jihad, terrorism. Sadly, journalism   is still failing to perform its fundamental purpose by simply rehashing tired old narratives of ‘radical Islam’ or a ‘fight within Islam.’ The truth is much more convoluted than that — and the entire world has a direct role in creating the dangerous reality that so many Muslims have to live with every single day. The mainstream media shows remarkable consistency in employing an arsenal of semantic games, key phrases, convenient omissions, and moral relativism to portray such violence as a product of Islam.

What one misses in the analysis  of these developments by the media is  absence of comments on injustices heaped on innocents Muslims in several countries, particularly in areas like Palestine and Kashmir, which do not engage attention of the media with the same vigor.   The distorted images of Islam stem partly from a lack of understanding of Islam among non-Muslims and partly from the failure by Muslims to explain themselves.

The results are predictable: the hatred feeds on hatred. Ignorance of Islam exists both among Muslims and non-Muslims. Non-Muslims, ignorant and misunderstanding Islam, fear it. They believe it threatens their most basic values. Fantasy, conjecture and stereotypes replace fact and reality. Similarly Muslims have their own misconceptions. They, reacting to the hate and fear of non –Muslims, create a kind of defensive posture within their societies and a combative environment built on militant rhetoric. In this heat and misunderstanding, the voices of peace and tolerance are drowned. We need sanity in all quarters to let the truth prevail.

There is widespread agreement among   Muslims   that media reports involving Muslims are  selective, biased, stereotypical and inaccurate .If you want to know how many times Muslims   condemned violence and extremism just google “Muslims against terrorism” or “Muslims Condemning ISIS” or any similar words and you will be surprised by the thousands of Muslim institutions, scholars, and governments that are condemning and fighting terrorism while assuring everyone that this does not have anything to do with the peaceful message of Islam  .

The majority of Muslims are moderate, peaceful people who have been affected by terrorism and violence more than non-Muslims. But the media is not interested in this positive news. It has constructed its own stereotype of a Muslim and uses selective stories to reinforce this stereotype.

So what is the purpose of mainstream media if they are not going to fulfill their mission of informing the public? Money. The collective   media is a multibillion dollar monolith.  It’s an industry that is managed by industry barons who want to promote their own ideology and feeds on firing information at the viewer at a machine-gun pace and when that happens, a lot of context gets lost. Many of the people who work in media have no clue how to tell a story at street level and when it’s a story about Muslim issues, they get even more clueless.

The press follows a familiar narrative everywhere .Muslims are extremist, they are intolerant, their scriptures promote violence.

There is a tendency for journalists to become preachy. Some editors think they run the country, or at least set the agenda for the country. Walter Lippmann once wrote:’ More newspapermen have been ruined by self-importance than liquor. The most searing disapproval was uttered by a former English prime minister, Stanley Baldwin. Talking of British press barons in 1931, he said they exercise ‘power without responsibility-the prerogative of the harlot through the ages’. Journalists are no longer seen as knights in shining armor fighting evil wherever it may exist. They are seen, with honorable exceptions, as tricksters, fixers, people who can be purchased with flattery combined with a little access and, more worryingly, cash. Forensic reasoning

The reality is that religious leaders and dialogue practitioners may not be equipped to properly understand and analyze news sources, or reach out meaningfully to the media. They may not be aware of the process of newsroom agenda-setting, and may not recognize that journalists do not usually set the news agenda. Religious leaders and dialogue practitioners could benefit from training on how to represent themselves better to the press and online. They should not allow their messages of peace and reconciliation, or the fact they represent the majority of people of faith, to be overshadowed by media-savvy “religious” voices that deal in conflict and hatred.

Moreover, the internal diversity and grassroots nature of faith communities frequently eludes observation. There is more to religion than the set of leaders who officially or unofficially seem to represent it. Viewing religious communities as a constellation of institutions and leaders ignores the diversity of beliefs, opinions, political and social views and day-to-day experiences of faith among millions of people around the world. These realities are relevant to achieving accuracy in covering religious diversity and trends. It is equally incumbent on the media that it remains sensitive to the diversity of opinion on any religious issue .There is every possibility that in the heat of the debate objectivity gets diluted.

Religion is often portrayed simply as a social or political construct, although for millions of people, religion is a daily practice, and the very real framework of understanding that connects human lives to a spiritual reality. Their faith is the prism through which they view the world, and their religious communities are their central environments. It is difficult to overstate the importance of faith in the lives of so many. It is evident that most people around the world would prefer to live in peace than in conflict. Yet, often the only religious voices on the front page are those speaking messages of hatred or violence, especially in stories about conflict or social tensions.

Edward Said believed that media images are informed by official definitions of Islam that serve the interests of government and business. The success of the images is not in their accuracy but in the power of the people who produce them, the triumph of which is hardly challenged. “ Labels have survived many experiences and have been capable of adapting to new events, information and realities. If you want to know how many times Muslims and Arabs condemned violence and extremism just google “Muslims against terrorism” or “Muslims Condemning ISIS” or any similar words and you will be surprised by the thousands of Muslim institutions, scholars, and governments that are condemning and fighting terrorism while assuring everyone that this does not have anything to do with the peaceful message of Islam and the Arab world. The majority of Muslims are moderate, peaceful people who have been affected by terrorism and violence more than non-Muslims/non-Arabs. In fact, a new report by the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at the United States’ Military Academy at West Point in New York has shown that the vast majority of al‐Qa’ida’s victims are Muslims. They prove that Al-Qaida kills eight times the amount of Muslims than non-Muslims. They had to depend on Arabic media sources and look into the terrorism trend through a non‐Western prism. Unfortunately, this is not shown in the mainstream media for reasons wedo not really know.

As a journalist one must always tread the path of breaking news carefully. In an attempt to break news or create exclusive stories, many journalists leave objectivity, professional ethics and personal integrity behind. Exaggerating facts, presenting just one side of the argument or sensationalizing stories is bad journalism and one must steer clear of the factors that lead to confusion and misrepresentation.

There are a number of ways that a journalist can hold people and organizations accountable for their actions without taking a position. To start with, journalists working on a story must be determined to stay objective, throughout the period of research and investigation. To avoid taking a position, both or multiple sides of the story must be presented. If people or organizations are involved in wrongdoings, then their view as well as the views of those facing the repercussions of their actions must be made clear. It is not up to the journalist to help shape the reader’s perspective, especially, while reporting a story or doing a feature, therefore, one should avoid taking a stand. In cases, where transgressions have been obviously committed, reliable sources could help make those clear and garner readers support for those suffering from them. Even then, the alleged perpetrator must be allowed to present their points of view. Sometimes, simply pursuing a story, because personal interests could be at stake, amounts to taking a position. In journalism, like in law, facts can be presented to support or disprove an incident, an action or a decision. Being aware of this, can help journalists understand that facts have to be presented not as one would like them to be read to fit a notion or a brief, but as they have occurred.What is therefore needed to cool the flames of hatred is to bring the faith leaders and the media on a common platform that would provide constructive interaction and aid in injecting objectivity in the media’s assessment of Islam and Muslims.

What is media? courtesy Wikipedia

• Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising
• Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass electronic communication networks
• Digital media, electronic media used to store, transmit, and receive digitized information
• Electronic media, communications delivered via electronic or electromechanical energy
• Hypermedia, media with hyperlinks
• Mass media, all means of mass information and communication
• Multimedia, communications that incorporate multiple forms of information content and processing
• New media, a broad term encompassing the amalgamation of traditional media with the interactive power of computer and communications technology
• News media, mass media focused on communicating news
• News media (United States), the news media of the United States of America
• Print media, communications delivered via paper or canvas
• Published media, any media made available to the public
• Recording medium, devices used to store information
• Social media, media disseminated through social interactions

(Moin Qazi is a well known banker, author and Islamic researcher .He holds   doctorates in Economics and English .He is   author of several books on Islam including bestselling biographies of Prophet Muhammad and Caliph Umar. He writes regularly for several international publications including Daily Sabah (Turkey) Moroccan Times, Chicago Monitor, Sudan Vision and Times of Malta .He was   also Visiting Fellow at the University of Manchester.   He is based in Nagpur and can be reached at moinqazi123@gmail.com)