Islamophobic and Racist: Calling for the Media to Call it What it is

The Duty of Journalists and Editors to Recognize Their Impact on Society

By Eilidh McCartney

Daily Express headlines compiled via @ukfactcheckpolitics on Instagram

I’ve been writing and editing for Opine at the Gaudie for about a year now. One of our commitments as editors of this section is that we want to ensure the writer’s voice is heard, but we absolutely do not tolerate hate speech of any kind, explicit or implicit. As an editor, I feel it is at upmost importance to think about how every article comes across and how it impacts the communities who will interact with it.

It is already hard enough to follow what is going on in the United Kingdom without media sources pressing their own narratives onto the news. So, if we at the Gaudie, a student newspaper, are able to vet all of our articles with limited resources and a very small team, there is certainly no excuse for big media companies not to do the same.

In the past week we have seen Islamophobic and racist attacks on the rise, but ask any Muslim person you know and they will tell you that they knew it was coming.

This country is racist and Islamophobic and not calling it what it is, is at the very root of the problem.

We can’t continue to pretend that this is a ‘battle’ or a ‘story with two sides’ when there are libraries and mosques being burned down, lynch mobs on the street. This kind of violent hate has to be seen as terrorism. It is the duty of all news outlets, especially those we hold in high regard to report this as it is.

Keir Starmer: Condemning Far Right “Thuggery”

When the roles are reversed and it is white people being murdered, we wouldn’t call it ‘thuggery’, that’s terrorism. Let me remind you that several mosques have been mobbed; two hotels which are being used as Asylum Centres have been set alight; cars have been stopped and homes attacked. This is terrorism. These are terrifying times for Muslim communities and ethnic minorities and our Prime Minister merely condemns these actions.

Yeah, thanks Keir, that’ll do it.

MP Zarah Sultana appeared on Good Morning Britain today opposite Andrew Pierce of the Daily Mail, calling for politicians and media outlets to pay attention to how word choice impacts stories. Sultana points out that Keir Starmer does not use words such as Islamophobic or terrorism in his statement regarding the attacks. Presenters Ed Balls and Kate Garraway interrupt her frequently to ask Sultana her opinion on controlling migration whilst Pierce and Bradshaw laugh and call Sultana “unreasonable”.

Daily Mail headlines compiled via @zarahsultanamp on Instagram

This was a disgusting display, stressing the exact issue which Sultana is there to talk about.

But it wasn’t just this morning’s episode of GMB or the last week of media coverage that brought this all to a head; it’s the last decade of UK newspaper headlines and reporting aggravating the issue and twisting real-life events for clicks and views. Sultana specifically raises issue with the Daily Mail, to which Pierce claims she has no proof. A mere few hours later Sultana collated front pages from the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, the Sun, the Spectator and the Daily Star.

We cannot pretend any longer that feeding people inflammatory, racist headlines every day will not have an impact on our society. These people profit from provoking this kind of hate every day.

Just because the position of editor is not blatantly one of political power, does not mean that it will not have an effect on popular policy. Every single person in this country consumes some form of media and all the major news outlets are guilty of stigmatizing minorities.

We have a moral responsibility to ensure that news reporting is impartial, otherwise it isn’t news at all.

Even in an opinion-based section such as this one, there is no space for any kind of hate. Of course, we can have differing opinions but we cannot and will not pretend that racism and Islamophobia are just opinions, just ways of seeing things. These are dangerous and will be weaponized in the long run.

The Sun headlines via @ukfactcheckpolitics on Instagram

But this issue isn’t new or accidental. This dehumanization of ethnic minorities is a rhetoric which has been on the rise for decades. This kind of fearmongering is a tool used to sell more and more papers. In this attention economy, we cannot be so lazy as to exploit insecurity and create to hate in order to encourage people to read our articles.

Shocks sells yes, but what about our integrity?

What about the real life vulnerable people whose lives are being not only affected but taken completely?

People are dying and more people are going to die if we continue on like this. So no, these are not simply just words and as journalists and editors, we should know that. This is no time for beating around the bush and pretending that we don’t have an impact.

This country is Islamophobic and racist and until we admit that, nothing is going to change.