Text of report in English by Malaysian official news agency Bernama website

[Bernama report from the "General" page: "Call To Media To Stop Portraying Islam, Muslims Negatively"]

KUALA LUMPUR, July 29 (Bernama) - The media must give fair coverage and balanced representation on Islam and Muslims in reporting conflicts involving Islam and Muslims, said Dr Haja Mohideen Mohamed Ali, a lecturer from the Communications Department of International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM).

He said distinctive choice of words, phrases and terminology used by the media in reporting on Islam and issues concerning Muslims could have a negative impact on the perception of Islam and its followers by the global public.

"Some of the media are responsible, they like to look things from a proper perspective but a lack of understanding of Islam and Muslims cause them to use negative terms when reporting on the religion and Muslims," he said when presenting his paper "Linguistic (MIS)Representation of Islam and Muslims in Conflicts Reporting in the Print Media" at the International Conference on the Representation of Islam and Muslims in the Media here, Tuesday.

Haja Mohideen said the misrepresentation of Muslims could also be found in the media from Muslim countries, although at a smaller scale compared to the media from the West.

His views was shared by another scholar, Dr Zulkarimein Nasution, a lecturer from the Communications Department of the University of Indonesia.

Zulkarimein said bias against an ethnic or religious group such as Muslims in the mass media had negative impacts on peoples beliefs and perceptions and that the best approach to minimise the effects was through education.

"The public, especially the younger generation, should be taught how to analyse the mass media. They should be made aware that the representations made by the media are not always appropriate, and that what they see or hear in the mass media is not always the reality," he said.

He said, when a negative act was done by non-Muslims, the media did not label their act by their religion but only focused on their act alone unlike Muslims' negative acts, where they are always associated with the religion they profess.

He said the media should give a neutral representation of Muslims by not giving any reference to the doers of the act, rather by referring to the act itself.

More than 27 communications scholars from Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Canada, Qatar, Indonesia, the United States and United Arab Emirates are participating in the two-day conference which ends tomorrow. The conference is organized by IIUM.

Source

mashaAllaah

Again, what seems to be missing in the criticism of this article is the fact that when most non-Muslims commit an act of murder or terrorism they do so without professing a religious viewpoint. The IRA did not commit acts of terrorism in "defense of Christianity" or for the "Glory of Christ". The situations where I see the media label someone as a "Christian extemist" is usually involving the murder of abortion doctors. Those "Christians" do profess a religious viewpoint and as such should be labeled Christian extremists. We Christians can argue that their actions do not make them Christians, but the media isn't in the business of deciding who is a Christian and who isn't. They profess a religious viewpoint and are labeled as such.

Take the 9-11 hijackers, the 7/7 bombers, and other terrorist events. Quite frequently those who carry out these attacks leave their "martyrdom" tape, which professes a religious viewpoint and justification for their actions. How can the media avoid connecting the dots here?

woh that name can be rearranged to spell mojahideen

I agree completely.

The bottom line is - and this is most recently - the 'dots connected' have almost always been to Islam. A big waste of time, money and resouces which the world pays for over and over again. The media has done its utmost to try and give Islam a bad name - I challenge anyone Muslim or otherwise to refute that. How any sane person can give 'peace' a bad name is beyond me and a topic of absurdity in itself.

Anyway religion in its broad sense just means 'way of life'. Everyone has one. Even someone who says 'I denounce belief in all religions' could be labelled as 'religiously unreligious'. If the IRA were about some land power stuggle then that was their religion. Some people's religion is about football, chasing women or being a neo-Nazi.

To claim that "...when most non-Muslims commit an act of murder or terrorism they do so without professing a religious viewpoint..." is a partly true in the sense that the media pick and choose. The Media won't report things like a Jew murdered his wife or a Christian burnt down his wife killing his wife and 3 kids. It will just be husband kills wife etc even though it was an act of evil terror. They won't even probe and ask the right questions. If the person looks like your average Joe then that person's religion will not be brought up. In fact I've recently seen more anti-Islamic foolishness in a local media report. A 'devout Christian' was murdered by some Muslim named youths. Suddenly, from nowhere, it became essential to mention how this man was a 'practising, devout Chrisitan' - again to make the Muslims look like they follow a religion of Terror.

Just the other day two women got drunk on a plane and tried to effectively down it. Terrorism plain and clear - even an areoplane was involved a la 9/11 style. One tried to open a door and could have killed everyone - say 300 people?. Was there ANY mention of their religion?. Were they Aethists?, Secularists? Rastas? etc. Maybe they were non-practising Christians?. Now my point is IF they were Muslims doing this it would be FRONT LINE news. No end of it on all news Channels.

Speaking of getting drunk in 2006, around 20000 people died in US in alcohol-related traffic crashes. These deaths constitute almost 40 % of the total accidents. Many of the drivers were found with BAC more than .08. State wise the number varies. Alcohol related crashes kill almost 50 people a day. Each year almost 275, 000 people are also injured due to drunk driving.

How many Muslim terrorists kill people each year in the US? - I think FAR less than drink drivers. I'm in no way saying lets not fight terror in the forms of bombings etc. However like for like, using logic the US should be waging a multi-trillion dollar war against drink-driving as it kills more of its citizens than Muslim Terrorists.

There will NEVER be peace in this planet called Earth until there is JUSTICE.

I agree with some of the points you make. If a Muslim becomes involved in an incident it is probably more likely that his or her religious faith will be used to identify him or her. I think the media should be more mindful of the distrust that exists between non-Muslims and Muslims these days and refrain from making it a religous issue when it isn't.

I think it is important to point out that in its coverage of the Iraq War, the media very rarely brings up Islam, unless it is to cover sectarian strife. What is brought up are the Taliban and Al-Qaeda...there is no way to separate them from their religious foundations. Same is true for Afghanistan as well.

That being said, the media should not sidestep the issue of Muslim terrorists, it is a reality and will be for awhile I presume. Added to that, the media should be more mindful of U.S. or British Muslims and the added burden it places on those communities when their religious affiliation is brought up for no constructive reason.