Document details

Reporting Islam: International Best Practice for Journalists

London: Routledge (2018), viii, 152 pp.

Contains index

ISBN 9781138709348 (pbk); 9781315200941 (online)

Signature commbox: 10-Religion-E 2018

"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 realworld 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." (Publisher description)
1 Introduction, 1
2 Setting the scene, 9
3 Theoretical frameworks for analysing media coverage of Islam: Orientalism, Islamophobia and racism, 21
4 Problems and effects: news media coverage of Islam and its potential implications, 31
5 Approaches to more ethical coverage: peace journalism, constructive journalism and solutions journalism, 41
6 Journalists', educators' and Muslims' views on the reportage of Islam and Muslims, 53
7 A model for transformative journalism, 65
8 Reporting radicalisation, terror incidents and arrests, 77
9 Reporting Muslim women: veiling, 87
10 Muslim, migrant, refugee? conflating identities, 95
11 Reporting Sharia and halal, 105
12 News media coverage of mosques, 115
13 Best practice approaches, 127
14 Conclusion: implementing inclusive approaches to reporting on Muslims, production and audience considerations, 139