LONDON: The editor of the UK’s Sunday Times has admitted that newspapers need to do more to improve their coverage of Islam and Muslim-related issues.
Emma Tucker made the comments ahead of a report from the Muslim Council of Britain which concludes that UK media coverage of Islam is highly critical.
Tucker said she welcomed the MCB report “in the full knowledge that it contains criticisms of the press, my own paper included.”
She told The Guardian: “Some of those criticisms are valid. Some I would respectfully disagree with. All, though, are useful. To move forward in serving that broad readership, we want to hear views from every part of it.”
Tucker said her paper needed to hire more diverse staff to ensure it improved its coverage of Islam, but made clear that “sometimes we will just see the issues differently.”
She was not in charge of the paper when the MCB survey was conducted, but avoided criticizing her predecessor.
“By its nature, a report like this must focus on the past. My job is to focus on the future. I want our news coverage to be fair but fearless, and our commentators to be robust but responsible,” she said.
The MCB report, convened by the council’s Centre for Media Monitoring, analyzed 48,000 articles published between late 2018 and 2019.
It found that 59 percent of articles associated Muslims or Islam with negative behavior or qualities.
Right-wing outlets were generally more critical of Islam than left-leaning publications, with The Spectator faring the worst by being classed as “antagonistic,” with 37 percent of pieces categorized as such.
Behind the report’s investigation was Miqdaad Versi, who has spent years urging British media to change the language it uses when reporting on Muslims, often by using the UK’s press regulator to push for story corrections.
The report’s authors said they did not want uncritical coverage of Muslims, but sought to improve the quality of reporting in the British media.
They told The Guardian: “Even stories which report on a Muslim having achieved something noteworthy are framed by their supposed embrace of Western liberal values whilst breaking free of the shackles of their own faith or tradition.”
