Examining the Issue of Islam and Muslims in the Media: A Perspective of Malaysian Media Practitioners

Fauziah Hassan,Siti Zobidah Omar,Sofia Hayati Yusoff,Muhamad Zaki Mustafa,Osama Kanaker

doi:10.6007/ijarbss/v10-i16/8300

Abstract

Researching on Islam and Muslims-related issues in the media have been a never-ending debate and always have been updated time by time. It catches the attention of academics, scholars, preachers, researchers to discuss on the alternative platform in reducing or somewhat controlling what the media should report about particularly on Islam and Muslims issues. The aim of this study is to examine the reportings related to Islam and Muslims issues of the Western newspapers. Interviews were conducted among eight Malaysian media practitioners to identify how they translate the meaning of work as a journalist in Islamic context, and also to find out their best practices in producing a balanced and fair news reporting. The interviews were later transcribed verbatimly, analyzed and deliberated their experiences towards this issue. Results show that they believe as Muslim journalists, they should be true, trusted and not bias in reporting news. Further, they also find out that having good references from experts and doing some research before reporting on any issues are very important especially in reporting news globally. Thus for them, the adaptation of good journalistic practices represent a positive image of Islam and Muslims in order to continue creating a surrounding of Islam and Muslims at present and in the future.

Highlights

Researching on issues related to Islam and Muslims in the media is a never ending debate and always updated time by time. It catches attention from academics, scholars, preachers, researchers to discuss on the alternative platform in reducing or somewhat controlling what the media should report about on Islam and Muslims issues
This article aims to provide a room for improvement especially on how to write news related to Islam and Muslims issues
Listening to the interviews can be very mind-blowing. Their experiences, ideas and viewpoints have depicted the new picture of how Islam and Muslims issues are being reported

Summary

Introduction

Researching on issues related to Islam and Muslims in the media is a never ending debate and always updated time by time. It catches attention from academics, scholars, preachers, researchers to discuss on the alternative platform in reducing or somewhat controlling what the media should report about on Islam and Muslims issues. From the remarkable incident happened on 11/9, it has moved to other issues such as violence, conflicts, indiscrimination, economic disparity, crisis, poverty etc which involved Islam and Muslim societies. Aljazeera in 2019 has reported that world leaders faced few major issues such as Islamophobia, poverty, the Rohingya refugee crisis, the economic disparity faced by Niger (one of the OIC members country) and the issue of Uighur minority in China. The violence raged across the north-east of India’s capital for four days as mosques were set alight (The Guardian on 1st March 2020)

Objectives

Results

Conclusion