UK: Press regulator to issue guidelines for reporting on Islam that won’t “impinge right to criticize or challenge”
Yeah, sure they won’t. OK, show of hands, people: how many of you believe that IPSO’s new guidelines for reporting on stories involving Islam and Muslims will not actually impinge upon the right to criticize Islam or challenge Islamic teachings? How many of you actually believe that IPSO will not act as part of the larger initiative in Theresa May’s shabby little police state to criminalize and silence all criticism of Islam? I don’t see any hands raised.
“Press regulator to issue new guidance on stories about Islam or Muslims that ‘will not impinge right to criticise or challenge,’” by Charlotte Tobitt, PressGazette, January 15, 2019:
Press regulator the Independent Press Standards Organisation will publish guidance later this year on the reporting of Islam and Muslims in the UK.IPSO, the UK’s largest press regulator, said the guidance would “help journalists to report on a sensitive area whilst ensuring that it does not impinge their right to criticise, challenge or stimulate debate”….Guidance issued by IPSO is non-binding and is supplementary to the Editors’ Code of Practice.IPSO says its guidance is “designed to support editors and journalists” and “does not limit or restrict editorial decision making, but may inform that decision making”.In a blog outlining IPSO’s planned standards and monitoring work for 2019, head of standards, Charlotte Urwin, said improving the reporting of Islam and Muslims was one of the regulator’s five priority areas for the year.Urwin said IPSO began working on producing guidance for journalists on the reporting of Islam and Muslims in the UK in October 2018, describing it as “an area of broad political and social concern”.She said IPSO has established an informal working group, which includes academics with research experience relating to Islam and Muslims in the UK and representatives of relevant organisations, to help draft the guidance….Of the approximately 320 complaints investigated by IPSO with a ruling published in 2018, nine related to coverage of Islam or Muslims in the UK.Of these, five were upheld by IPSO as a breach of the Editors’ Code of Practice by Press Gazette’s count.These were:
- Mail Online – “Landmark ruling sees British court recognise sharia law for the first time as judge rules wife married in Islamic ceremony can make claim on husband’s assets under UK law”
- Daily Star online – “McDonald’s may be forced to close ALL restaurants in London Borough after hijab row”
- The Times – “Judge rules child must leave Muslim foster home”
- The Sunday Times – ‘”Asians make up 80% of child groomers- study”
- The Spectator – “Accept this as the new normal? Never”
Press Gazette found 12 corrections about stories relating to Islam and just one such story about Christianity in complaints involving IPSO in 2015-16….Daily Express editor Gary Jones, who took the top job at the paper in March last year, told MPs a few months later that the title had in the past created an “Islamaphobic sentiment”.
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