Hawzah News Agency (London, UK) - The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) officially launched the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) and its first quarterly report, State of Media Reporting on Islam and Muslims in Parliament on 9 July 2019. The project expands the work that has elicited over 100 corrections on inaccurate stories in national media, to a broader remit of tackling the serious problem of bias.

The CfMM’s goal is to promote fair and responsible reporting of Muslims and Islam, by engaging constructively with the media and empowering communities to make a change.

The launch in Parliament, hosted by Naz Shah MP (Shadow Minister of State for Women and Equalities), heard from a number of speakers:

Yasmin Qureshi MP, Chair, APPG on Religion in the Media

Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, former Conservative Party Chair

Gary Jones, Editor-in-Chief, Express

Paul Clarkson, Managing Editor, The Sun

Bishop of Chelmsford, Lords Communications Committee

Professor Paul Baker, linguistics expert who validated the methodology used

Shahin Sadafi, Grenfell United

In attendance were a range of senior stakeholders including the Managing Editor of the Daily Mail, Alex Bannister and the Managing Editor of the Mail on Sunday, John Wellington.

Gary Jones, Editor-in-Chief of the Express acknowledged the presence of Islamophobia in the press, and praised the Centre for Media Monitoring for its report, as a way of holding media to account. “We need to be monitored,” he said, whilst also noting that the Muslim Council of Britain was the first group he met with, after becoming Editor-in-Chief.

Professor Paul Baker praised the report as, “impressive” because “they’re doing what we can’t”, highlighting also that the “analysis is both detailed and large-scale. And importantly, they know how to do this”.

The study of print and broadcast reports reveals a serious problem in the way that British media reports about Islam and Muslims. Examining over 10,000 articles and clips referring to Muslims and Islam in the period of Q4 2018, the key findings:

59 per cent of all articles associated Muslims with negative behaviour

37 per cent of articles in right-leaning and religious publications were categorised with the most negative rating of “very biased”

Over a third of all articles misrepresented or generalised about Muslims terrorism was the most common theme

The platforming of the far-right on a number of debate programmes has allowed the propagation of false stereotypes about Islam and Muslims

The Secretary General of the MCB, Harun Khan, said: “The Centre for Media Monitoring is a huge step forward for Muslim communities, who have consistently raised concerns about the way that the media’s reporting on Muslims and Islam have affected people on the ground. We hope that this positive, constructive and evidence-based approach will make the change that we all feel is long overdue.”