Skip to main content

Muslims feel media reports involving them 'selective, biased, stereotypical, inaccurate'

By Moin Qazi*
The Covid-19 pandemic has put the medical doctors through one of the most gruelling tests of all time. They are on the frontlines of the battle to save human lives and are putting a truly brave show. Yet away from the battle lines, in the comfort confines, is another tribe of doctors that is engaged in an unusual combat. These are the communal doctors who are devising new medicines and tools for breeding the hate propaganda.
Leading them on the frontlines are some journalists who see in this pandemic a more incendiary fuel to stoke the communal agenda. The media has for long been engaged in a toxic propaganda against Muslims and this new calamity has led to a more lethal mutation of the communal virus.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been so many instances of omissions on part of many groups, including governments and international bodies. It was quite understandable because we were not equipped to foresee the course of the trajectory. But the role of some journalists in pinning the blame on a particular community and assigning conspiracy labels to it only shows a deliberate bias. The hallmark of any great media is that , it always considers facts as sacred.
The damage to health, wealth, and well-being has already been enormous. This is like a world war, except in this case, we’re all on the same side. Hence instead of pitting one section of humanity against another we should make it a combined united fight.
There is a cottage industry of authors who keep the midnight oil burning to ensure that the flashlights on bad Muslims keep beaming. These are churned out by a well-oiled Islamophobia machine with financial backers, think-tanks, and misinformation experts who are constantly manipulating the already flawed image of what a Muslim is, of what Islam is. They are attacking the identity of Muslims, which is so diverse that it cannot possibly fit into a box.
They have not only ratcheted their anti-Muslim rhetoric but also made it more strident. In fact, the entire discourse is being orchestrated on predefined lines. To put it in the words of Jim Morrison, “Whoever controls the media controls the mind”.
In an ideal world, journalism is a profession of incredible integrity and journalists are among the most dexterous and skilled people in the world. We have all benefited from the work of persistent journalists who put life, limb, family and even sanity on the line in their pursuit of truth. There is no sane, decent, and democratic polity possible without journalists who challenge power, relentlessly pursue and disseminate the truth and always find the next story to tell.
The press once seemed to have a conscience, thanks to history’s painful social conflicts and questions of war and peace. The world, however, has changed, and many of us may be in the time warp of old values. Like all institutions, the media has also suffered in terms of its reputation.
Mark Twain once said: “Stupid people – who constitute the overwhelming majority of this and all other nations – believe and are convinced by what they get out of a newspaper, and there is where the harm lies.”
The crucial point is credibility. For the media to be credible it has to take responsibility for getting its facts right. That means digging deep, talking to a range of people to get the different sides of the story, and checking their facts rigorously. It should not hesitate to root out and expose lies, hypocrisy and corruption, but has to be sure of its facts before doing so.
There is widespread agreement among Muslims that media reports involving them are selective, biased, stereotypical and inaccurate.
If you want to know how many times Muslims have themselves condemned violence and extremism, you just have to Google with common phrases associated with Islamic extremism and you will be surprised by the thousands of Muslims, their institutions, scholars, leaders, priests and governments that are condemning and fighting violence, hatred and terrorism while assuring everyone that this does not have anything to do with the peaceful message of Islam.
It is only the voices of extremism that are being microphoned and the saner voices of liberalism and pluralism are totally obscured giving a very distorted slant to the whole discourse.
In the context of growing media attention given to Islam and Muslims, there is a critical issue with the role that the media plays in reinforcing certain negative stereotypical images of the community. There is widespread agreement among Muslims that media reports involving them are selective, biased, stereotypical and inaccurate.
Voices of extremism are being microphoned, but saner voices of liberalism and pluralism are obscured giving a distorted slant to discourse
Majority of Muslims are moderate, peaceful people who have infact been more affected by terrorism and violence 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 the mainstream media if they are not going to fulfil their mission of informing the public? Money.
The collective media is a multibillion-dollar monolith. It is an industry that is managed by industry barons who want to promote their own ideology and feed on firing information at the viewer at a machinegun pace, and when that happens, a lot of context is lost. Many of the people who work in media have no clue how to tell a story at street level and when it is a story about Islamic issues, they are even more clueless.
The press follows a familiar narrative everywhere. Muslims are extremists, intolerant and their scriptures promote violence. The distorted images of Islam stem partly from a lack of understanding of Islam by non-Muslims and partly from the failure by Muslims to explain themselves. The results are predictable -- hatred feeds on hatred. The 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. Reacting to the hate and fear of non-Muslims, they 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 out. We need sanity in all quarters to let the truth prevail.
The media can play a very critical role in our goal of achieving this objective. The reality is that religious leaders and dialogue practitioners may not be equipped to properly understand and analyse news sources or reach out meaningfully to the media. They may not be aware of the process of the 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. There is the possibility that in the heat of debate objectivity gets diluted. It is necessary that both faith leaders and journalists appreciate and understand each other's constraints.
News media relies on sales for survival because their sales figures determine both their subscription and advertising revenues. What sells is hard-hitting news about dramatic, action-packed and emotionally charged events. As the saying goes: 'If it bleeds, it leads.' That does not mean that audiences do not react positively to in-depth features and profiles, but traditionally headlines are driven by hard news, including political, military and economic developments. This can make it challenging to find a prominent space for nuance.
There are scholars who devote their entire careers to understanding even a single religious sub-tradition. There are different doctrines, beliefs, modes of dress and practices, institutional structures, leaders, alliances and disputes among individuals or communities that are opaque from the outside. Different communities within the same religion may have different interpretations of history and doctrine.
For news media, training reporters so they can depict and report knowledgeably on religious communities may seem prohibitively time consuming, expensive or difficult. These are the cold, hard facts of day-to-day media operations. For their part, Muslim leaders can play a very meaningful role in sensitizing the media to the various complexities that Islamic issues have. Broader dialogue can help in a nuanced understanding of the whole issue.
Journalists need to rededicate themselves to the original mission which made journalism a noble calling of so many great men. It is their commitment to the values of liberty and freedom that earned the press the status of the Fourth Estate alongside the other three custodians of free speech and democracy.
It is time journalists reaffirmed their commitment to the credo of Joseph Pulitzer III (1913-1993), the founder of the world’s gold standard in journalism, the Pulitzer Prize: 'We will illuminate dark places and, with a deep sense of responsibility, interpret these troubled times.'
---
*Development expert

Comments

TRENDING

Insider plot to kill Deendayal Upadhyay? What RSS pracharak Balraj Madhok said

By Shamsul Islam*  Balraj Madhok's died on May 2, 2016 ending an era of old guards of Hindutva politics. A senior RSS pracharak till his death was paid handsome tributes by the RSS leaders including PM Modi, himself a senior pracharak, for being a "stalwart leader of Jan Sangh. Balraj Madhok ji's ideological commitment was strong and clarity of thought immense. He was selflessly devoted to the nation and society. I had the good fortune of interacting with Balraj Madhok ji on many occasions". The RSS also issued a formal condolence message signed by the Supremo Mohan Bhagwat on behalf of all swayamsevaks, referring to his contribution of commitment to nation and society. He was a leading RSS pracharak on whom his organization relied for initiating prominent Hindutva projects. But today nobody in the RSS-BJP top hierarchy remembers/talks about Madhok as he was an insider chronicler of the immense degeneration which was spreading as an epidemic in the high echelons of th

Central pollution watchdog sees red in Union ministry labelling waste to energy green

By Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran*  “Destructors”, “incinerators” and “waste-to-energy (WTE) incineration” all mean the same thing – indiscriminate burning of garbage! Having a history of about one and a half centuries, WTE incinerators have seen several reboots over the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. 

First-of-its-kind? 'Eco-friendly, low cost' sewage treatment system installed in Gujarat

Counterview Desk Following the installation of the Unconventional Decentralized Multi-Stage Reactor (UDMSR) for sewage treatment, a note on what is claimed to be the  first-of-its-kind technology said, the treated sewage from this system “can be directly utilized for agricultural purposes”, even as proving to be a “saviour in the times of water crisis.”

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah*   The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual. 

Indo-Bangla border: Farmers facing 'illegal obstacles' in harvesting, transporting yields

  Counterview Desk  In a representation to the chairperson, National Human Rights Commission, human rights defender Kirity Roy, who is secretary, Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM), has said that Border Security Force (BSF) personnel are creating "illegal obstacles" for farmers seeking to harvest their ripened yields and transport them to the market in village Jhaukuthi of Cooch Behar district.

Wasteland, a colonial legacy, being used to 'give away' vast tracts to Ratnagiri refinery

By Fouziya Tehzeeb* William D’Souza, a 55-year old farmer from Kuthethur, Mangalore, was busy mixing cattle feed when we arrived at his doorsteps. Around 25 km from the bustling city of Mangalore, Kuthethur is a lush green village with thick vegetation. On the way to William’s house the idyllic view gets blocked by the flares and smoke arising from the Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL).

'Flawed' argument: Gandhi had minimal role, naval mutinies alone led to Independence

Counterview Desk Reacting to a Counterview  story , "Rewiring history? Bose, not Gandhi, was real Father of Nation: British PM Attlee 'cited'" (January 26, 2016), an avid reader has forwarded  reaction  in the form of a  link , which carries the article "Did Atlee say Gandhi had minimal role in Independence? #FactCheck", published in the site satyagrahis.in. The satyagraha.in article seeks to debunk the view, reported in the Counterview story, taken by retired army officer GD Bakshi in his book, “Bose: An Indian Samurai”, which claims that Gandhiji had a minimal role to play in India's freedom struggle, and that it was Netaji who played the crucial role. We reproduce the satyagraha.in article here. Text: Nowadays it is said by many MK Gandhi critics that Clement Atlee made a statement in which he said Gandhi has ‘minimal’ role in India's independence and gave credit to naval mutinies and with this statement, they concluded the whole freedom struggle.

CAA disregards India's inclusive plural ethos, 'betrays' ideals of freedom struggle: PUCL

Counterview Desk    "Outraged" at the move of the Central government to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA 2019) weeks before the election, the top rights group, People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), has demanded that the law be repealed. 

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Our Representative Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Sections of BSF, BGB personnel 'directly or indirectly' involved in cross border smuggling

By Kirity Roy*  The Border Security Force (BSF) of India and the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) of Bangladesh met for 54th Director General level meeting at Dhaka, Bangladesh, on 5th to 9th March, 2024 to discuss on minimizing killings at border area, illegal intrusion, trafficking of drugs and other narcotics, smuggling of arms and ammunitions and other crimes at bordering areas. Further, the summit had an agenda to discuss on overall development in 150 yards area at both sides of the border and design an activity plan for the same.