So about 8 per day distributed across 5 media outlets.
It's also important to highlight the article's last two paragraphs as it constrasts significantly with the tone of the headline:
> Articles were regarded as “negative articles written about Islam”, if they “referred to Islam or Muslims alongside words like violence, extremism, terrorism or radical”. It should be noted – this is a pretty expansive definition. A story that accurately reported a noteworthy incident of Muslim violence, without being inflammatory or misrepresenting material facts, and which had the respectful cooperation of Muslims, would still be caught up under this definition.
> Indeed, the definition could go further. A report that noted Muslim women in a non-government organisation helping victims of domestic violence might also be caught up under this definition. It should also be noted – there is an implicit slippage, in the sense that a negative story about Muslims isn’t necessarily a story about Islam. Thus, I would argue that the definition may be overbroad.
Edit: Originally, I erroneously wrote that this was 8 per day across all Murdoch owned outlets. That is not the case, it is among 5 specific ones.
Why should one make the blanket assumption that criticism of Islam bad? If a cleric says women should not have the right to vote, why is it a bad thing for me to criticize this Islamic cleric, and the broader trends such statements reflect?
Let's be clear: there absolutely are valid reasons to be critical of Islam. It is entirely appropriate, for example, to "trash" the fact that in some regions of the word the majority of Muslims support executing those that leave the religion: http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religi...
The undertone of the article seems to be implying that negative media coverage of Islam is reponsible for Islamaphobia. While I'm sure many people erroneous apply negative comments about trends in Islam asa whole with individual Muslims, the blanket assumption that criticism of Islam equates to Islamaphobia is also reductive and non-productive.
(Deleted bit about the number of companies Murdoch owns, as it is not relevant to the study in question).
Wouldn't that depend on accuracy? You're assuming here that all negative press for Islam is necessarily evil, which is false. Negative press isn't the same as bigotry.
Incidentally, I would be interested in the amount of negative coverage, say, the Catholic Church gets in the media as a point of comparison, perhaps especially in the left-leaning media.
Just because you present the facts doesn’t mean you aren’t biased.
Note the focus of some of these articles on individual incidents in a civil war, for example a particular group of predominantly Muslims killing a lot of Christians on a particular day. The reporter neglects to cover the other six days of the week when many more Muslims were killed by this group.
Is that fair coverage? Does it appear to be accurate? Is it negative about Islam?
"The report investigates how five newspapers covered Islam in 2017... The newspapers were all Murdoch’s: the Australian, Herald Sun, Daily Telegraph, Courier Mail, and Adelaide Advertiser."
There are presumably many thousands more in the other Murdoch properties around the world.
> The report investigates how five newspapers covered Islam in 2017
This was around the time of peak ISIS and peak Syrian civil war, the prefect time to be seeing those terms thrown around. Did they break down what section they appeared in too? 8 a day in the first couple of pages seems excessive, but if they include 3 line articles in the world news section then it's more than reasonable.
Andrew Bolt though, no matter what your view on Islam, does it really deserve mentioning in 38% of his articles.
> Andrew Bolt though, no matter what your view on Islam, does it really deserve mentioning in 38% of his articles.
Depends on what is his work area and interests. Journalists often work in specific segments. If somebody covers US White House, it'd be no wonder they mention Trump frequently. If somebody covers British politics, there would be tons of Brexit. If somebody covers Middle East and Syria, well, there would be a lot of ISIS and such. And if somebody is into crypto currencies, there would be a lot of Bitcoin mentions. I don't think its more fair to say it's obsession than saying a particular sports journalist is "obsessed with baseball" because 38% of his articles mention the sport. Yet less it means the particular person hates baseball and is "baseballphobic".
That might be the case with some of them, but he's the head columnist and is/was an editor for one of the countries largest papers and syndicated in most other major ones. He's a regular political commentator and has a daily TV show. You'd expect someone with that level of influence to be a generalist and cover a broad range of material relevant to society and not to focus on a single issue so consistently.
> And if somebody is into crypto currencies, there would be a lot of Bitcoin mentions.
And that would show a clear bias, which I think is also demonstrated for Bolt.
I would recommend you read some of Bolt's work for you to understand exactly how off base your comment (though perfectly reasonable in abstract) is, when applied to Bolt in particular. Though in truth, i would not wish such a fate on my worst enemy. Bolt is as bad at writing as he as a human being.
Well, maybe Bolt is a bad writer, but then it doesn't really matter whether 38% of his writings or 88% or just 8% are about Islam. If he's bad, one shouldn't read it anyway so how much of it is about Islam is kinda moot :)
The article itself mentions that even articles about Trump bombing Assad forces are counted as "negative on Islam". Also looking at the pictures of headlines they provided, only one says anything about Islam (at least in the headline, there could be more in the article but they specifically talk about headlines).
I think this is a study which aimed at predetermined conclusion and was successful in reaching it.
The credibility of the Imam of Peace being called into question is a new thing for me. I follow him on social media and find his overall message to be uplifting and positive.
This post questions his title and Wikipedia states he's a self proclaimed Imam. His website seems to reference some authorities claiming hes legit: https://imamtawhidi.com/licenses/
He's far from perfect in all of his messaging but overall his messages are positive.
One potentially useful context would be how this compares to other religions.
A quick internet search tells me there are about 1.5 billion Muslims in the world and about 2.19 billion Christians.
If we consider the amount of media attention the various catholic churches have been receiving it isn't difficult to believe the number of "negative" stories could be much higher than ~3000 per year.
Does anyone know if this comparison has been done?
> It’s a shame that the study didn’t investigate other media more fully. .... Interestingly, though Fairfax has considerably less coverage of Muslims than the Murdoch press, it’s still pretty substantial, at over 100 every month. That is, over three negative stories every day at the less Islam-obsessed Fairfax. ...
I hate this kind of "study". It is impossible to put them in context.
- Are those media generally negative toward everything, or just Islam?
- How many Islam stories do they publish?
- How many positive Islam stories do they publish?
- How many are objective facts? How many are commentary?
- How does this number compare to, let's say, Christian / Scientology / science etc?
This goes right to the heart of the division we see today. The "endless state of war" Orwell warned about in 1984, is not just wars between nations, or proxy wars ~ we see it in the democratic systems as wars between factions of the population.
The system has an incentive to never produce a victor, only to prolong the conflict.
Much fighting in these wars occurs in social and traditional media, centered around "battleground topics", the OP being a clear example.
The OP is an example of a message in the battleground topic of "Islam vs the West" (aside: which is actually historically incorrect since Islam really can be said to be closer to the West than separate from it, one reason is that Islam revived Europe / Western civilization around the Mediterranean 1000 years ago [1]).
The OP article supports for the Islam side, one of many such articles. There are also many articles supporting the West side of this battleground topic.
The system will not permit there to be a conclusion to the argument, it is actually motivated to promote both sides, because this constant state of conflict is stabilizing to the democratic systems.
Given that 1 million Europeans were kidnapped as slaves by Arabs, and both Spain and Sicily having been conquered by Muslims, and how most of the Yugoslavian region was called the "Military Frontier" for three centuries due to the Ottoman incursions it had to guard against, how on Earth do you arrive at "Islam vs the West" being historically inaccurate?
No offence, but it seems to me you want to see "Islam" and "the West" as a conflict. Maybe that story of Islam and the West in conflict has been manufactured, and your response (like many others') is desired by, and plays into the hands of, those who benefit from manufacturing conflict.
I didn't say facts didn't happen. I said the stories we make of them are optional.
I assume I know the same facts as you, and I choose a different interpretation. But maybe that's not true, maybe the facts you and I know are different.
If you read the entire book, I think you'll know why I say Islam is part of the West, not versus it.
> Articles were regarded as “negative articles written about Islam”, if they “referred to Islam or Muslims alongside words like violence, extremism, terrorism or radical”. It should be noted – this is a pretty expansive definition.
One important question is how many of these stories are substancially true?
It is one thing to call for the suppression of false stories. It is another thing entirely to call for the suppression of true stories.
> A story that accurately reported a noteworthy incident of Muslim violence, without being inflammatory or misrepresenting material facts, and which had the respectful cooperation of Muslims, would still be caught up under this definition.
So, they're not separating factual reporting from fake news about islam? How does this not entirely invalidate the study?
Yes, islam gets discussed a lot... but islamist extremism is a global problem. Calling criticism of islam "islamophobia" is incredibly counterproductive. The more we try to clamp down on criticism of islam, the more we stoke anti-islamist fears and hatreds.
This pisses me off as much as seeing people still defending convicted pedophiles like George Pell because they're catholic clergy.
I get that people like their religions. That doesn't mean those religions should be placed above reproach. We need to make a clear distinction between criticism of islam and islamophobia. As far as I can see (since I refuse to disable my anti-tracking and anti-ad plugins on a strange site) the study the article is talking about doesn't do that.
37 comments
[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 76.4 ms ] threadIt's also important to highlight the article's last two paragraphs as it constrasts significantly with the tone of the headline:
> Articles were regarded as “negative articles written about Islam”, if they “referred to Islam or Muslims alongside words like violence, extremism, terrorism or radical”. It should be noted – this is a pretty expansive definition. A story that accurately reported a noteworthy incident of Muslim violence, without being inflammatory or misrepresenting material facts, and which had the respectful cooperation of Muslims, would still be caught up under this definition.
> Indeed, the definition could go further. A report that noted Muslim women in a non-government organisation helping victims of domestic violence might also be caught up under this definition. It should also be noted – there is an implicit slippage, in the sense that a negative story about Muslims isn’t necessarily a story about Islam. Thus, I would argue that the definition may be overbroad.
Edit: Originally, I erroneously wrote that this was 8 per day across all Murdoch owned outlets. That is not the case, it is among 5 specific ones.
Edit: Would you say it's 8 too many per day if they were trashing Trump? (or Israel, or Hillary Clinton, or anything/anybody else with faults)
Let's be clear: there absolutely are valid reasons to be critical of Islam. It is entirely appropriate, for example, to "trash" the fact that in some regions of the word the majority of Muslims support executing those that leave the religion: http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religi...
The undertone of the article seems to be implying that negative media coverage of Islam is reponsible for Islamaphobia. While I'm sure many people erroneous apply negative comments about trends in Islam asa whole with individual Muslims, the blanket assumption that criticism of Islam equates to Islamaphobia is also reductive and non-productive.
(Deleted bit about the number of companies Murdoch owns, as it is not relevant to the study in question).
Incidentally, I would be interested in the amount of negative coverage, say, the Catholic Church gets in the media as a point of comparison, perhaps especially in the left-leaning media.
Note the focus of some of these articles on individual incidents in a civil war, for example a particular group of predominantly Muslims killing a lot of Christians on a particular day. The reporter neglects to cover the other six days of the week when many more Muslims were killed by this group.
Is that fair coverage? Does it appear to be accurate? Is it negative about Islam?
Real people are suffering and dying today at the hands of those with a more fundamentalist interpretation of Islam.
By suggesting Islam should not be criticised, you are an apologist for that oppression.
No. Five newspapers.
"The report investigates how five newspapers covered Islam in 2017... The newspapers were all Murdoch’s: the Australian, Herald Sun, Daily Telegraph, Courier Mail, and Adelaide Advertiser."
There are presumably many thousands more in the other Murdoch properties around the world.
> The report investigates how five newspapers covered Islam in 2017
This was around the time of peak ISIS and peak Syrian civil war, the prefect time to be seeing those terms thrown around. Did they break down what section they appeared in too? 8 a day in the first couple of pages seems excessive, but if they include 3 line articles in the world news section then it's more than reasonable.
Andrew Bolt though, no matter what your view on Islam, does it really deserve mentioning in 38% of his articles.
Depends on what is his work area and interests. Journalists often work in specific segments. If somebody covers US White House, it'd be no wonder they mention Trump frequently. If somebody covers British politics, there would be tons of Brexit. If somebody covers Middle East and Syria, well, there would be a lot of ISIS and such. And if somebody is into crypto currencies, there would be a lot of Bitcoin mentions. I don't think its more fair to say it's obsession than saying a particular sports journalist is "obsessed with baseball" because 38% of his articles mention the sport. Yet less it means the particular person hates baseball and is "baseballphobic".
> And if somebody is into crypto currencies, there would be a lot of Bitcoin mentions.
And that would show a clear bias, which I think is also demonstrated for Bolt.
A much more reputable study with actual controls: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/20/muslim-terro...
This post questions his title and Wikipedia states he's a self proclaimed Imam. His website seems to reference some authorities claiming hes legit: https://imamtawhidi.com/licenses/
He's far from perfect in all of his messaging but overall his messages are positive.
A quick internet search tells me there are about 1.5 billion Muslims in the world and about 2.19 billion Christians.
If we consider the amount of media attention the various catholic churches have been receiving it isn't difficult to believe the number of "negative" stories could be much higher than ~3000 per year.
Does anyone know if this comparison has been done?
> It’s a shame that the study didn’t investigate other media more fully. .... Interestingly, though Fairfax has considerably less coverage of Muslims than the Murdoch press, it’s still pretty substantial, at over 100 every month. That is, over three negative stories every day at the less Islam-obsessed Fairfax. ...
I hate this kind of "study". It is impossible to put them in context.
- Are those media generally negative toward everything, or just Islam?
- How many Islam stories do they publish?
- How many positive Islam stories do they publish?
- How many are objective facts? How many are commentary?
- How does this number compare to, let's say, Christian / Scientology / science etc?
The system has an incentive to never produce a victor, only to prolong the conflict.
Much fighting in these wars occurs in social and traditional media, centered around "battleground topics", the OP being a clear example.
The OP is an example of a message in the battleground topic of "Islam vs the West" (aside: which is actually historically incorrect since Islam really can be said to be closer to the West than separate from it, one reason is that Islam revived Europe / Western civilization around the Mediterranean 1000 years ago [1]).
The OP article supports for the Islam side, one of many such articles. There are also many articles supporting the West side of this battleground topic.
The system will not permit there to be a conclusion to the argument, it is actually motivated to promote both sides, because this constant state of conflict is stabilizing to the democratic systems.
[1]: read this book, https://www.amazon.com/Why-West-Rules-Now-Patterns/dp/031261...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vienna
I assume I know the same facts as you, and I choose a different interpretation. But maybe that's not true, maybe the facts you and I know are different.
If you read the entire book, I think you'll know why I say Islam is part of the West, not versus it.
One important question is how many of these stories are substancially true?
It is one thing to call for the suppression of false stories. It is another thing entirely to call for the suppression of true stories.
Does this, then, mean that true stories are automatically OK? Not necessarily; Weak men are Superweapons: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/12/weak-men-are-superweap...
So, they're not separating factual reporting from fake news about islam? How does this not entirely invalidate the study?
Yes, islam gets discussed a lot... but islamist extremism is a global problem. Calling criticism of islam "islamophobia" is incredibly counterproductive. The more we try to clamp down on criticism of islam, the more we stoke anti-islamist fears and hatreds.
This pisses me off as much as seeing people still defending convicted pedophiles like George Pell because they're catholic clergy.
I get that people like their religions. That doesn't mean those religions should be placed above reproach. We need to make a clear distinction between criticism of islam and islamophobia. As far as I can see (since I refuse to disable my anti-tracking and anti-ad plugins on a strange site) the study the article is talking about doesn't do that.