An international research network exploring the representation of Muslim identities in contemporary cultural discourses.

No Right of Reply to Lazy Journalism

Last Updated on Thursday, 03 November 2011 18:27

On Sunday 30 October 2011, both the BBC website (‘MP Mike Freer “threatened at mosque surgery”’) and the Sunday Express newspaper  (‘Muslim Fanatics abuse MP at Mosque’) carried the story that the conservative MP for Finchley, Mike Freer, had been threatened and verbally assaulted during a surgery at the North Finchley mosque two days earlier. The MP’s session was allegedly interrupted by an aggressive group of about a dozen Muslim protesters hurling anti-Semitic and homophobic insults. He was forced to hide in a locked room until the police arrived.

Both the BBC and the Daily Express appeared to be drawing on the same source – probably the Press Association – since their reports were very similar and dwelled on Mr Freer’s account of the incident, his membership of the Conservative Friends of Israel Group, and on the threats to him carried on the website of Muslims Against Crusades, which compared him to Stephen Timms, the east London MP attacked by a fanatic last year.

One ought not to be surprised by this story, carrying, as it does, so many incendiary elements. Moreover it represents a classic case of the framing of Muslims with which this project is concerned: being another account of the antics of that pantomime villain Anjem Choudary, a professional agitator with serious form, who appears to have a Pavlovian impact on news editors everywhere. The antics of his previous group, Islam for UK, in staging noisy protests at the repatriation of the bodies of British soldiers in Wootton Bassett had journalists foaming at the mouth.

One would not wish to trivialise a serious incident and would hope that the full force of the law be brought to bear if any wrongdoing is found. Nor would we suggest that violent radicalism go unreported. However, these two reports were totally lacking the perspective of those other, undoubtedly shocked worshippers and mosque officials who must have witnessed the incident. Why was no attempt apparently made to secure a quote from them, both to corroborate the MP’s account and to express their feelings about this violent intrusion into their space? Instead, Freer’s call to the Metropolitan Police Borough Commander – a piece of shameless rank-pulling unfortunately not open to those other members of the local community who may be the victims of verbal abuse – was covered, as were the internet rantings of Choudary and his group of professional ‘victims’.

We would urge readers to take a look at the conclusion to our recent book, Framing Muslims (Harvard, 2011), where we analyse the symbiotic relationship between a press eager for Muslim scare stories and the bogeyman Choudary who is always happy to oblige them.

One might not expect any more thoroughness or even-handedness in reporting from the Daily Express, with its long track record of scare-mongering anti-Muslim stories. However, for the BBC to reproduce such incomplete and one-dimensional fare is very disappointing. Unfortunately, the media framing of all Muslims as guilty by association is still very much with us.