Pointing The Finger, Islam and Muslims in the British Media Edited by JULIAN PETLEY and ROBIN RICHARDSON

Abstract

As the Leveson Inquiry into the conduct of the British press unveils a series of ethically troubling practices, most people who have reflected critically on the press reportage and wider ‘framing’ of Islam and Muslims may well have anticipated some of its key findings. Over a number of years the editors of this volume have been doing precisely this, and have brought together a strong collection of contributors to broaden out and support their analysis. Indeed, a great strength of the book is that, in addition to scholarly interventions, we have first hand accounts from journalists themselves. The chapter by Hugh Muir and Laura Smith (‘Keeping Your Integrity – and Your Job: Voices from the Newsroom’) in particular stands out for this reader and is worth dwelling on briefly. In the critique of press discourse on Muslims we often overlook how Muslims too might be participants in the creation of this discourse. The anonymized accounts in their own words show how practising Muslim journalists negotiate, resist, or indeed become complicit in, sensationalist portrayals of Muslims. Amongst the most interesting features of the chapter are the ways in which the presumed ‘insider knowledge’ can be professionally restrictive in channeling Muslim journalists into ‘Muslim’ (i.e. security) stories, and how perilous resisting this becomes. As one Muslim journalist put it: ‘I would get phone calls and be sent on every Muslim story […] Then one day I snapped and blew up. The news editor went really red and embarrassed and didn’t want to discuss it. I think he was very worried about being seen as racist. So overnight I was stripped of that access. […] It felt like punishment for speaking up’ (pp. 231–2). While another recalls, ‘I remember wanting to do a story about a Muslim organisation and how it was being demonised. […] But it wasn’t sexy enough because it was not about extremism. The focus at the time was on allocating blame and getting to the bottom of where extremism was happening’ (p. 241).