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Some people doubt the scale of Islamophobia in the media, claim it is limited to certain views of Katie Hopkins, Rod Liddle and Melanie Phillips, and believe the far-right attitudes come from extreme rather than mainstream sources. This thread aims to challenge such assumptions.
There are a plethora of false, racist or misleading front pagers that have helped create this deeply worrying "othering" of Muslims. A small selection is here but many more exist. This thread, however, will focus on the less well known cases, to demonstrate the scale of the issue 
Firstly, it is mainstream media reporting about Muslim communities that is contributing to an atmosphere of rising hostility towards Muslims in Britain, according to a University of Cambridge/ESRC Roundtable held at the House of Lords.
cam.ac.uk/research/news/…
cam.ac.uk/research/news/…
Many will recall Hopkins' "final solution" tweet after the Manchester bombings, but here is an establishment journalist Trevor Kavanagh (he was on the Board of the press regulator IPSO) using Nazi-like language about Muslims ("The Muslim Problem")
And we should not forget Kavanagh's lie about migrants
And remember when Kelvin Mackenzie suggested Fatima Manji should not have anchored news including reports on Nice attack due to her faith? Trevor Kavanagh supported Mackenzie by saying Manji's wearing of the headscarf was "provocative"
theguardian.com/media/2016/jul…
theguardian.com/media/2016/jul…
Consider Andrew Gilligan - he has been at The Telegraph and The Sunday Times. His articles on Muslims have been completely found to be fundamentally wrong again and again and again and again and again due to inaccuracies (see thread below for basis)
Here is just one example of how Gilligan's lie in The Sunday Times (picked up by other papers) spread to the far-right
Individuals like Richard Kemp are given an open platform in the Sunday Times for example spouting hate such as "Islamists may have already infiltrated our armed forces"
Or Niall Ferguson who doesn't even seem to know what he's talking about yet is given space at the Sunday Times to put out the most appalling hateful pieces
Or what about James Delingpole glorifying the anti-Muslim Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson), or making up false information about Muslims
Or Douglas Murray - a man who is given a platform at the BBC unchallenged to spout the view that less Islam is a solution to terrorism - and by less Islam, as he explains in the video, he means fewer Muslims. He wrote a similar article in The Sun
I really could go on - but it's important to move from columnists (and Gilligan) onto the framing of Muslims in our society.
e.g. The Times has no issue with falsely calling a Muslim school an "Islamist school"
e.g. The Times has no issue with falsely calling a Muslim school an "Islamist school"
What about when The Times, Telegraph, Sun, Mail Online, Express all falsely suggested a Muslim couple ran an Islamist ‘Trojan Horse’ plot in Oldham.
The Express, Mail Online and The Times all falsely claim that 84% of those convicted of child grooming were Asian (actually the vast majority were white) - they all corrected after complaints
Or for an example of victim blaming - when an Imam was beaten to death, The Times headline was "Imam beaten to death in Rochdale, town stricken by grooming gangs"
See how The Times called the Middle East Forum "respected American think tank".
ICYMI MEF is a strong Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) supporter, funded pro-Robinson protests; has said it has invited Robinson to Washington
ICYMI MEF is a strong Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) supporter, funded pro-Robinson protests; has said it has invited Robinson to Washington
The Times had a "disgracefully dishonest" front page: "Christian child forced into Muslim foster care", which it continued to run on 4 front pages. It has later been proven to be entirely wrong (and it seems he knew about it before publishing)
Many of these stories have been shared by individuals like Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson)
Or see how the false grooming story was shared
Daily Mail apologise for 8 serious inaccuracies that undermine the fundamental premise of the hatchet job written by Andrew Malone about Muslim immigrants in Paris - after my complaint (6 months after the original article)
And that article was shared by Paul Watson to his 935k followers
The idea of Muslims being the other, has also been promoted in other ways e.g. the Sun decided to focus on what terrorists "look like" - just imagine the consequences of this type of thinking
This is an example of literally a made up story - it actually was someone who spoke Basque.
There is this fetishisation of Muslim religious terms e.g. Allahu Akbar
How does the idea of Muslims being evil spread - by articles like this
Even basic concepts like Halal misunderstood, and misreported - with lies spread because they must "sound right" to the editor of the day.
For example, The Sun attacked Ramadan
It's just so easy for newspapers to get it wrong when it comes to Muslims
The key conclusion is that Islamophobic and hateful attitudes and conspiracies of Muslims taking over (ideas used by the #ChristchurchTerrorAttack perpetrator) are not fringe - but very much carried by mainstream national newspapers.
When asked where do people get their conspiratorial views about Muslims from, the answer is clear - sections of the media.
And the alt-right and far-right use these "mainstream" papers to support their narrative - a narrative that has devastating consequences. /END
And the alt-right and far-right use these "mainstream" papers to support their narrative - a narrative that has devastating consequences. /END
Gilligan claims the Press Gazette piece cited is wrong as the Sunday Times did not apologise (although The Times did). Obviously given his history on Muslim related issues, not sure he can be trusted - & it doesn't change the fact the story was wrong.
But important to share for completeness.
Despite Gilligan being on the byline, he insists he did not write the lie (despite not raising it when I called him up on it: ). I have not been able to verify but for the sake of fairness, I have cited his clarification here:
Of course this does not in any way take away from articles that he has written himself about Muslims which have been corrected on multiple occasions - but in this case, he is insisting he did not lie, and I want to ensure that my thread accurately reflects his position.
