Latest news with #CfMM
The National
2 days ago
- Politics
- The National
BBC cuts off student opening A-Level results after genocide comments
Thursday marked A-Level results day for students across England, with students in Scotland opening their results on August 5. BBC News was doing a live segment at Liverpool City College where a journalist interviewed one of the students who was receiving their results. READ MORE: Read leaked report which 'proves Yvette Cooper is lying about Palestine Action' In the clip, which has since been shared on social media, the student looked directly into the camera and said: "On that note I just wanna say, free Palestine, end the genocide and the BBC's complicity." The presenter quickly interjected and said: "Alright, we're here to talk about A-Level results–" The student could then be heard saying: "The BBC is complicit in the genocide–" They were quickly cut off again by the presenter who said: "Alright, thank you for your thoughts. "We're here to talk about A-Level results today. Gaza, whole different subject." A student opening their results live on the BBC: 'On that note, I want to say Free Palestine, end the genocide and the BBC is complicit…' The BBC reporter quickly interjected and said 'we're here to talk about A-Level results… Gaza is a whole different subject…' — Hamza Yusuf (@Hamza_a96) August 14, 2025 It comes after a similar incident occurred earlier on Thursday when a BBC Radio 2 host cut off a caller who said the BBC and the Labour Government were "complicit in the Palestinian genocide". During a segment where listeners were asked to give advice on wedding speeches, a caller named Mary said: "Thank you so much for putting me on. "The BBC and the UK Government are complicit in the Palestinian genoc–" READ MORE: First woman arrested under abortion buffer zone law faces no further action Mary's line was promptly cut off before she could say the end of the word "genocide". Host Tina Daheely went on to say: "Oh, okay, not about wedding speeches at all. Cut that one off there because I've no idea what else they were going to say." A BBC spokesperson said on the matter: 'During a specific item on wedding speeches, a caller began to give personal views unrelated to the subject matter, so we swiftly moved on to the next listener's opinion.' The BBC has previously been accused of showing "a pattern of bias, double standards and silencing of Palestinian voices" in its coverage of Israel's assault on Gaza. A report from the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), published in June, found that the BBC gave Israeli deaths 33 times more coverage per fatality, despite Gaza suffering 34 times more casualties than Israel. The broadcaster was also found to have interrupted or dismissed claims of genocide more than 100 times – while only 3% of articles analysed by the CfMM used the terms "war crimes" in relation to Israeli violence against Palestinians. The BBC has been approached again for comment regarding the latest incident on BBC News.
The National
2 days ago
- Politics
- The National
BBC Radio 2 host cuts off caller over 'complicit in genocide' comments
On Thursday afternoon, BBC Radio 2 ran a segment where listeners were asked to give their tips on giving wedding speeches. Host Tina Daheely – stepping in for Jeremy Vine – introduced a caller from Manchester, called Mary. READ MORE: Israeli minister announces settlement plans 'to prevent Palestinian state' Mary said: "Hi there, I'm just calling, thank you so much for putting me on. "The BBC and the UK Government are complicit in the Palestinian genoc–" Mary's line was promptly cut off before she could say the end of the word "genocide". Daheely went on to say: "Oh, okay, not about wedding speeches at all. Cut that one off there because I've no idea what else they were going to say." She added: "We are talking about wedding speeches here." READ MORE: Serious nuclear incident took place at Faslane naval base this year The BBC has previously been accused of showing "a pattern of bias, double standards and silencing of Palestinian voices" in its coverage of Israel's assault on Gaza. A report from the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), published in June, found that the BBC gave Israeli deaths 33 times more coverage per fatality, despite Gaza suffering 34 times more casualties than Israel. The broadcaster was also found to have interrupted or dismissed claims of genocide more than 100 times – while only 3% of articles analysed by the CfMM used the terms "war crimes" in relation to Israeli violence against Palestinians. On Monday, protesters gathered outside the BBC's headquarters in Glasgow where they accused the corporation of "building consent for genocide". The protest came in response to the news that Israel targeted and killed six journalists in Gaza, including a prominent Al Jazeera reporter who had previously been threatened by Israel. The BBC has been contacted for comment.
Spectator
09-07-2025
- Politics
- Spectator
Miqdaad Versi and the troubling war on ‘Islamophobia'
Readers of progressive newspapers have occasionally been invited to admire a man called Miqdaad Versi. He was the subject of a respectful 2018 profile in the Guardian for his 'personal mission to confront…the Islamophobia of the British press' one complaint at a time. Versi's 'spreadsheet of shame' showed 'how flagrantly British papers get their news about Muslims wrong'. Alas, a large number of this piece's claims about the corrections supposedly forced on shameful British newspapers by Versi were themselves wrong and had to be corrected at the bottom of the online version. That is, as it happens, a truer reflection than the Guardian intended of the organisation which Versi set up, and where he remains 'lead strategist'. So if the media is not a pit of anti-Muslim falsehood and hatred, what is the CfMM's true objective? Versi's organisation is called the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), until this week part of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), of which he is also spokesman. It claims to specialise in challenging false, negative and 'Islamophobic' reporting by the British media about Muslims and Islam, through monitoring 'thousands of articles and broadcast clips daily' and complaining to regulators and media outlets about those which fall short. The CfMM claims that media falsehoods are 'widespread', with almost 10 per cent of news stories involving Islam 'misrepresenting Muslims, misusing terminology or misinterpreting Islamic beliefs and practice'. As Versi puts it: Sixty per cent of articles [about Muslims] analysed [by CfMM] associated negative aspects and behaviour with Muslims or Islam… Little wonder Islamophobia is so common in society. These claims have been widely repeated in politics and are widely believed in Muslim Britain. When we at Policy Exchange looked into it, however, we found that CfMM simply doesn't substantiate these serious and damaging charges. In the group's entire seven-year existence, the rulings database at Ipso, the press self-regulator, shows a grand total of one case brought by CfMM from which Ipso required a newspaper to make a correction: in December 2020, more than four years ago. In a further three cases brought by CfMM, the latest three years ago, Ipso found that a breach of its editors' code had occurred but that the newspaper had already corrected the error, with no further action required. CfMM complains directly to news outlets too. But it has made wildly varying claims about the number of articles it has monitored (from several million to several tens of thousands) and the number of successful complaints it has brought as a result (from 300 to 22.) Even taking its highest claimed number of successful complaints (300) and its lowest claimed number of articles monitored (55,500), that is about 0.5 per cent, nowhere near a tenth. In submissions to regulators and consultations, CfMM repeatedly reuses the same, or some of the same, twenty or so news stories, often many years old, as examples of inaccurate and 'Islamophobic' journalism. In the group's latest published submission, in 2023, the newest examples given were from 2020. Some old favourites had been published as long as 15 years before. Remarkably, the CfMM's '60 per cent' tally of negative stories appears to include factual accounts of Islamist terror attacks. The 'top three offenders', it says, are the wire services Reuters, AP and AFP, sources of almost entirely sober, factual and straight reporting – at the opposite end of the spectrum from the usual suspects of the right-wing tabloids. So if the media is not, as it turns out, a pit of anti-Muslim falsehood and hatred, what is the CfMM's true objective? It is, in the group's own words, 'taking control of the narrative' about Islam. It appears to be to pressurise journalists to accept a partisan view of the faith held by the MCB and its activists. CfMM tells journalists they should never use the terms 'Islamism', 'Islamic extremism' or 'Muslim extremism' at all. It attacks news outlets for describing terror groups, including Hamas and Islamic State, as Islamist. It appears to claim that moderate Muslims abandon their 'religious identities' for a 'version of Islam that has been sanctioned by the state', and that they may even be liberals or government spies. CfMM seeks to pressurise journalists into a conservative view of Islam, describing the hijab, the headscarf for women, as 'normative'. They attacked a Muslim writer, Qanta Ahmed, for 'misrepresenting Muslim behaviour and belief' after she wrote in The Spectator that there was 'no basis in Islam for the niqab', the full-face veil. CfMM has criticised TV dramas for showing Muslim characters who do not want to wear a hijab, or who drink alcohol, or who are gay. It has openly taken the side of intimidating mobs staging banned anti-gay demonstrations outside primary schools (news reporting which criticised those demos was, it says, 'Islamophobic'.) CfMM claims to support free speech. But it says that press regulators must discourage 'insults' against Islam. Nor, it says, should the media be allowed to accuse the authorities of failing to investigate wrongdoing because the perpetrators are Muslim, as in Rotherham. It describes the reporting of grooming gangs as based on 'shoddy' underpinnings, and has repeatedly attacked those, such as the late Andrew Norfolk of the Times and GB News' Charlie Peters, who have done most to expose it. How much does this matter? Potentially, quite a lot. Versi and CfMM have been welcome guests in media offices and at Ipso, claiming to be 'instrumental' in drawing up the regulator's guidance on Islam. A senior BBC News manager spoke at a CfMM event only last month, and it has been 'feeding in' to BBC policy. Major newspaper editors and celebrity reporters have endorsed some of CfMM's worst, most questionable research. CfMM organises regular workshops and training events in news organisations. It says it teaches journalism students at 'all the top universities', and actually has done so at several. And now, CfMM has a powerful new weapon in sight. It and the MCB are part of the wider campaign for an official definition of Islamophobia – something which, in the campaign's words, should be used to control and police activity 'far beyond' anything that can currently 'be captured as criminal'. This includes setting 'appropriate limits to free speech' when talking about Muslims. The government has stated its support for a definition. The man it has appointed to draw one up, Dominic Grieve, wrote a supportive foreword to the report in which these words appeared. Most investigative journalism looks at governments, public bodies and companies. But there's another set of people who need just as much scrutiny, and who can act with just as much shoddiness: the activist groups, working away behind the scenes, to skew society and the national conversation in wrong and dangerous directions.
Times
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Times
Muslim Council ‘acted in bad faith by trying to suppress reporting'
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has acted in 'bad faith' by seeking to suppress accurate reporting about terrorism and risks curtailing press freedom, a report has claimed. 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 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.
Telegraph
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Muslim media watchdog ‘wrongly labelled terror attack coverage as Islamophobic'
A Muslim media watchdog wrongly labelled coverage of Islamist terror attacks as ' Islamophobic ', a report has claimed. Policy Exchange, a think tank, said that factual news reports of such incidents had been assessed by the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) as examples of 'Islamophobic, negative' journalism. Those criticised by the centre, which was originally a Muslim Council of Britain project but is now an independent entity, include the Associated Press, a leading news agency, after it reported on a terror attack in Manchester on New Year's Eve in December 2018. The CfMM said the coverage was an example of negative reporting about Muslims because it included the phrase 'knife-wielding man yelling Islamic slogans.' However, Policy Exchange said this had been an accurate account of what happened. The watchdog also complained that describing Mohammed Emwazi, the British Islamic State executioner known as 'Jihadi John', as a terrorist was misleading because he had never been convicted. It further said that the decision by BBC News to call Khalid Masood, who killed five people in a terror attack near the Houses of Parliament in 2017, an 'Islamic extremist' was 'anti-Muslim language'. It said that 'it can be argued that linking the word 'Islamic' with extremism is an oxymoron as the word 'Islam' comes from the Arabic root word 'Salam', meaning 'peace'.' Policy Exchange claimed the centre's critique was part of a campaign to 'give legal and official force' to the concept of Islamophobia, ahead of moves by the Government to introduce a new legal definition of it. The think tank's report, which is due to be published on Tuesday, said: 'The aim of this campaign, in the words of its own supporters, is to control and prevent conduct 'far beyond' anti-Muslim hatred or discrimination (which all can agree are wrong, but which are already illegal),' said the think tank's report. 'It is to impose 'appropriate limits to free speech' when talking about Muslims, and special protections for Muslims. An official Islamophobia definition would give CfMM and its like a significant new weapon.' According to the report, CfMM said it had monitored at least 55,000 articles about Muslims and complained about those it deemed to be unfair or untrue. It alleged that 'almost one in 10' of the articles it had monitored had either misrepresented Muslims, misused terminology or misinterpreted Islamic beliefs and practices. The CfMM also claimed that almost 60 per cent of news stories about Muslims were negative, saying this proved the media's 'widespread… Islamophobia.' It said Reuters, AP and AFP, the respected international news agencies, were the 'top three offenders'. This included criticism of AFP for using the term 'Ramadan violence' during coverage of three killings during the holy period. By its own account, CfMM said it aimed to 'take control of the narrative,' telling journalists they should never use the terms 'Islamism,' 'Islamic extremism' or 'Muslim extremism.' It has also attacked news outlets for describing terror groups, including Hamas and Islamic State, as Islamist. In a foreword to Policy Exchange's report, journalist Andrew Neil, a former editor of The Sunday Times and BBC broadcaster, said the research showed that the CfMM, as well as its 'evidence' and conclusions, were 'badly flawed.' 'It shows how CfMM is part of a wider campaign for legal restrictions on what you can say about Islam, with fundamental implications for free speech,' he said. A spokesman for the CfMM said the claims by Policy Exchange were 'factually untrue' and fabricated. He said the criticism it made of articles about terrorism-related only to cases where unverified information was used by journalists. The spokesman added: 'This report is nothing but a politically motivated hitjob, riddled with inaccuracies, distortions and smears. It comes from an organisation that has long sought to influence our media into negatively framing British Muslims.'
