LONDON: A comprehensive two-year analysis reveals GB News accounted for half of the UK news broadcast coverage about Muslims and Islam, much of it with negative portrayals, potentially fuelling community tensions and contributing to civil unrest, researchers warn.
New research produced by the Centre for Media Monitoring (CFMM) shows structural and systematic bias in GB News reporting about British Muslims.
The study, conducted over two years and on 54 pages, speaks of “excessive” focus on Muslims bordering on an “obsession” that “regularly demonises their beliefs”.
Stories about Islam are “overwhelmingly negative” and fail to understand the diverse nature of Muslim communities in the UK.
The consistently hostile reporting, the CFMM report says, “risks inciting violence and discrimination against Muslim communities” and may have contributed to the toxic atmosphere surrounding last summer’s riots.
The report concludes that the channel “rarely features Muslim perspectives”, often “fails to challenge Islamophobic remarks” and portrays Muslims as a “Trojan horse” seeking to undermine British values.
The analysis compares GB News coverage of events concerning Muslims and Islam with the more balanced and far less negative approach of mainstream TV channels like BBC News and Sky News.
It concludes, “that GB News hates Islam and Muslims”. The report asks that the regulator, Ofcom, takes a much more robust approach to the broadcasting of biased content that misinforms viewers, divides communities and may encourage violence and disorder.
Over a two-year period, GB News mentioned Muslims or Islam more than 17,000 times in its output, accounting for almost 50% of total mentions on UK news channels. BBC News and Sky News accounted for 32% and 21%, respectively.
Specific shows that are particularly obsessed include Headliners and Patrick Christys Tonight.
Islamophobia has been referenced on GB News on 1,180 occasions accounting for 60% of all mentions when compared with BBC News and Sky News.
Yet, rather than reporting on the very real and everyday cases of anti-Muslim hatred, GB News stories overwhelmingly are geared towards rubbishing the concept of Islamophobia.
During the summer riots, GB News accounted for 62% of all clips on UK news channels that associated Muslims with the riots. This was the most of any news channel and three times as many as featured on BBC News or Sky News.
GB News repeatedly framed Muslims as perpetrators rather than victims of violence, downplaying attacks on mosques and Muslim communities, contributing to a biased narrative.
Commenting on the report’s findings, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi says: “The findings from this report about the excessive nature of GB News’s reporting on Muslim communities when compared to mainstream media outlets like Sky and BBC is shocking.”
The consistent stereotyping and stigmatisation of British Muslim communities as the “enemy” or the “problem” by a platform with millions of viewers is deliberate, dangerous and has real-life consequences. Seeing the impact of far-right radicalisation with the alarming year-on-year rise in anti-Muslim hatred, culminating in this summer’s riots where mosques and Muslim communities were openly targeted, should have been a wake-up call for all.
It is imperative that both the regulator and the government take decisive action to ensure broadcasting platforms are not used to fuel hatred and extremism that plays out as violent disorder on the streets of Britain.”
Former ITN Executive and Ofcom Regulator, Stewart Purvis who wrote a commentary in the report states: “The broadcasting regulator rightly does not attempt to tell news channels which stories to cover. But the Centre for Media Monitoring’s report creates a clear challenge to Ofcom: has its deregulated model for broadcast news created an unintended consequence? Can a broadcaster be allowed to try to build its audience and political influence by a consistently negative portrayal of an ethnic community?”
The Director of the Centre for Media Monitoring, Rizwana Hamid, adds: “Prior to GB News entering the British media landscape most of our attention was focused on the misrepresentation of Muslims and Islam in print and online publications given that Ofcom’s broadcast regulations were always more robust than the press regulator IPSO.
However, the volume of anti-Muslim hate on GB News and Ofcom’s reluctance to regulate its harmful content has meant that politicians and commentators have been give carte blanche to malign Muslims and Islam in a way that no other channel does.”
A robust regulator should demand that the channel performs according to long-established codes for broadcasters and enforce impartiality regulations.”
In response, The Guardian reported, a GB News spokesperson said: “This inaccurate and defamatory report is nothing more than a cynical, self-serving attempt to silence free speech.
It proves exactly why a news organisation like GB News needs to exist and why it is succeeding. We are concerned that at no point did this project of the Muslim Council of Britain contact GB News or its presenters to allow them to respond to these highly defamatory allegations.”
