Reporting Islam

Reporting Islam argues for innovative approaches to media coverage of Muslims and their faith. The book examines the ethical dilemmas faced by Western journalists when reporting on this topic and offers a range of alternative journalistic techniques that will help news media practitioners move away from dominant news values and conventions when reporting on Islam. The book is based on an extensive review of international literature and interviews with news media editors, copy-editors, senior reporters, social media editors, in-house journalism trainers and journalism educators, conducted for the Reporting Islam Project. In addition, the use of an original model – the Transformative Journalism Model – provides further insight into the nature of news reports about Muslims and Islam. The findings collated here help to identify the best and worst reporting practices adopted by different news outlets, as well as the factors which have influenced them. Building on this, the authors outline a new strategy for more accurate, fair and informed reporting of stories relating to Muslims and Islam. By combining an overview of different journalistic approaches with real-world accounts from professionals and advice on best practice, journalists, journalism educators and students will find this book a useful guide to contemporary news coverage of Islam.

It is a widely held view that, since the end of the Cold War, attention has focused on Islam as a central force of disruption within a New World Order. Nothing has heightened this more than the assault on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and the reporting of these events. Reporting Islam is a timely contribution to this debate which looks at the ways in which Muslims are represented in the British news media. Elizabeth Poole examines the claim that Muslims are universally demonized in the British press and comes to some illuminating conclusions. Reporting Islam is of great value to students of media, cultural studies, Islamic studies and politics.

It is a widely held view that, since the end of the Cold War, attention has focused on Islam as a central force of disruption within a New World Order. Nothing has heightened this more than the assault on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and the reporting of these events. Reporting Islam is a timely contribution to this debate which looks at the ways in which Muslims are represented in the British news media. Elizabeth Poole examines the claim that Muslims are universally demonized in the British press and comes to some illuminating conclusions. Reporting Islam is of great value to students of media, cultural studies, Islamic studies and politics.

Reporting Islam examines the coverage of Muslim women in the New York Times from 1979-2011. The analysis addresses the nature of the coverage; whether there are parallels in the depiction of Muslim women from the Middle East and South Asia and with the US government policies toward these countries; and the relationship between feminism in the US and the representation of Muslim women in the US. At a time when women often become the iconic representatives of their nations, their cultures and their religions, this book offers unique insight into how a dramatic period of contemporary history for the Middle East and South Asia was depicted by the leading print newspaper in the world. The coverage captures the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the rise of Islamist movements across the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa, the first Gulf War, the 9/11 events, the second Gulf War, the War on Terror, and the Arab uprisings. The book asks critical questions about the wider implications of the misrepresentation of Muslim women in the media, and the links between print news, US foreign policy and women.

Explores how élite broadsheet newspapers are implicated in the production and reproduction of anti-Muslim racism in Britain.

Why fears about Muslim integration into Western society—propagated opportunistically by some on the right—misread history and misunderstand multiculturalism. In the United States and in Europe, politicians, activists, and even some scholars argue that Islam is incompatible with Western values and that we put ourselves at risk if we believe that Muslim immigrants can integrate into our society. Norway's Anders Behring Breivik took this argument to its extreme and murderous conclusion in July 2011. Meanwhile in the United States, state legislatures' efforts to ban the practice of Islamic law, or sharia, are gathering steam—despite a notable lack of evidence that sharia poses any real threat. In Blaming Islam, John Bowen uncovers the myths about Islam and Muslim integration into Western society, with a focus on the histories, policy, and rhetoric associated with Muslim immigration in Europe, the British experiment with sharia law for Muslim domestic disputes, and the claims of European and American writers that Islam threatens the West. Most important, he shows how exaggerated fears about Muslims misread history, misunderstand multiculturalism's aims, and reveal the opportunism of right wing parties who draw populist support by blaming Islam.

Everyone talks about "Saudi money," but no one really knows what it is. Journalist Krithika Varagur, a longtime chronicler of religion and politics, tells the story of Saudi influence as it has never been told before, in a book reported across the breadth of the Muslim world, from Nigeria to Indonesia to Kosovo. The Call connects the dots on Saudi Arabia's campaign to propagate its brand of ultraconservative Islam worldwide after it became oil-rich in the 20th century. Varagur visits diverse outposts of its influence, from a Saudi university in Jakarta to a beleaguered Shi'a movement in Nigeria. She finds that the campaign has had remarkably broad and sometimes uniform effects, from the intolerance of religious minorities to the rise of powerful Saudi-educated clerics. The kingdom has spent billions of dollars on its da'wa, or call to Islam, at many points with the direct support of the United States. But what have been the lasting effects of Saudi influence today? And what really happened to their campaign in the 21st century, after oil revenues slumped and after their activities became increasingly subject to international scrutiny? Drawing upon dozens of interviews, government records, and historical research, The Call lays out what we really talk about when we talk about Saudi money.