Muslim Council ‘acted in bad faith by trying to suppress reporting'
It accused the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), set up and run by MCB, of pressurising journalists and programme makers to accept its partisan view of Islam.
In the 94-page report, published by the think tank and educational charity Policy Exchange, CfMM was said to have exposed 'a tiny number' of false and harmful stories in its seven-year history.The CfMM is understood to have concerns about the findings of Policy Exchange's report. It said that it 'engages constructively' with media owners and regulators.
Andrew Neil, the journalist and Times Radio presenter, backed the report. He said that CfMM was at the heart of claims that the British media habitually misrepresents and slanders Muslims.
He said: 'This Policy Exchange report forensically demonstrates that CfMM, its evidence and its conclusions are badly flawed. It shows how CfMM has a purpose far wider than the correction of supposed factual errors.'It seeks to enforce a tendentious view of Islam and sometimes seeking to suppress truthful, factual reporting which happens to contradict that view. The increasing role played by self-appointed, unrepresentative and often rather small activist groups in shaping public debate has been examined too little.'The report highlighted CfMM claims that it has been 'instrumental' in forging the Independent Press Standards Organisation's (Ipso) guidance on the reporting of Muslims, that it has been 'feeding into the BBC's terminology guidebook' on how to report about Islam and teaches 'masterclasses' on reporting at university journalism schools.
A CfMM representative said that it had shared its style guide with the BBC for it to consider and had previously joined an Ipso roundtable, where it pushed for the press watchdog's guidelines to the media to be more robust.
Andrew Gilligan and Damon Perry, the authors of the report, dismissed CfMM claims that almost 10 per cent of the 55,000 articles that it has monitored misrepresent Muslims and that almost 60 per cent of news stories involving the faith are negative.
Gilligan and Perry warned that accurate and factual reporting of Islamist terror attacks was being labelled as Islamophobic, with media outlets attacked for calling Isis's executioner Mohammed Emwazi, dubbed Jihadi John, a terrorist and the Westminster killer, Khalid Masood, an 'Islamic extremist'.
They also called into question the pressure it has brought to bear on regulators over dramas that 'insult' Muslim characters who are gay or dislike the hijab.
'This report provides all who need it with the evidence that the Centre for Media Monitoring is a bad-faith actor. It should not be engaged with or taken at face value by journalists, regulators or anyone else,' they said.
Labour suspended ties in 2009 with the MCB, which represents more than 500 mosques, schools and charities, after one of its leaders was alleged to have supported violence against Israel — which the group denies.
A review of the Prevent counterextremism strategy by Sir William Shawcross in 2023 said that non-engagement remained a policy for ministers because of 'unresolved extremism concerns'. The CfMM has been contacted for comment.
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