Negative bias in most UK news reporting about Muslims – study claims
By James Walker – PressGazette. More than half of UK news articles about Muslims show negative bias towards them according to a new study.
Research by the Muslim Council of Britain’s newly formed Centre for Media Monitoring found that 59 per cent of all articles about Muslims associated them with negative behaviours, while more than a third misrepresented or generalised about them.
It also found that terrorism was the “most recurring theme” in the media when reporting on Islam or Muslims.
The study examined 10,931 articles and 1,367 broadcast clips from 31 online media outlets and five main TV channels which referred to Muslims and Islam in the last three months of 2018, although the database of which reports were examined has not been made public.
A team of five staff monitored and analysed the coverage with help from academics. Findings from the analysis will be presented in Parliament today.
Researchers assessed the articles against five criteria – links with negative behaviour, misrepresentation, generalisations, lack of due prominence given to a Muslim voice and issues with headlines and imagery – before handing them one of four ratings ranging from “very biased” to “not biased”.