Concern over media terror reports

More than half of British news stories which mentioned terror, terrorists or terrorism also referred to Muslims or Islam, a new report has found.

This is almost nine times the amount perpetrators were identified as “far-right”, “neonazi” or “white supremacist”, the analysis by the Muslim Council of Britain’s Centre for Media Monitoring (CFMM) said.

The report, published today, said that media coverage of terrorism has been “consistently inconsistent”.

Rizwana Hamid, director of CFMM, said there was a “disproportionate focus” on Muslims and that headlines using terms such as “Allahu Akbar” implied that “religion is always the motivator”.

The report was based on an analysis of 16 terrorist attacks between 2015 and 2020.