‘Western journalists reporting on Islam have lack of knowledge’

YANGON (Myanmar): Most of the western journalists reporting on Islam or any other religion have little understanding of that faith resulting in the negative portrayal and rising tension, said an American research scholar on the coverage of religion by news media.
Her views supported by different studies and surveys are in contrast with widely held perception in the Islamic world that stereotypical coverage of Islam by the western media is motivated by their bias and arrogance instead of ignorance.
“Most of these (journalists) are mainly familiar with their own religious traditions, not the wider array of faiths and practices,” said Debra Mason while speaking at a panel discussion on “Religious sensitivity in breaking news coverage” during International Press Institute’s Annual World Congress being held in Rangoon these days.
Director of the centre of religion and the professions at University of Missouri (United States), Debra argued that vast majority of news about religion are covered by the journalists not trained for this assignment.
Reporting on religion is “as complex as science and medicine,” she noted explaining the assumptions of reporters about their own levels of religious knowledge are wrong. A 2012’s survey of US reporters covering religion endorsed this fact.
Around half of them acknowledged that their lack of knowledge about religion is the biggest challenge of covering it, according to Debra.
Quoting a 2007’s contest study of 300 articles published in British media, she said the research found 91% of the articles mentioned Muslims or Islam in negative association while only 4% in positive light and the remaining 5% were somehow neutral.
There are many factors affecting the ability of journalists to cover religion, most importantly 24/7 nature of news and the role of social media in driving new agenda and timing.
The latest example in this regard is of Andreas Lubitz, co-pilot of the German plane who crashed it deliberately the other day.
As the western media outlets broke the news, they didn’t forget highlighting this line: “the religion of co-pilot is unknown.”
Apparently intended objective was to make people think if he had any connections with Muslims, said Kadri Gursel, a Turkish journalist who was also panelist.
Swami Agnivesh, an Indian human rights activist, said that media tend to welcome extremist voices and play down the moderate elements thus intensifying inter-religion tension.
An Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi of Al-Jazeera America, said that her network ran the blasphemous caricatures of Charlie Ebdo in the United States. This could not have been done in Iran keeping in view its religious sensitivity there, she said.
There is more realization at public level than among journalists about the sensationalism being created through unprofessional religious coverage. Two-thirds (66.5%) of the public agrees that there is too much sensationalism in religion coverage, a view held by less than one-third of reporters (29.8%), explained Debra in light of a study conducted by an American university.
Religion is an extraordinarily complex yet religious literacy among the general population is quite low, she said. Surveys indicate, Debra goes on, the reporters covering religion in the US lack even the most basic knowledge like when the Jewish Sabbath begins, what Roman Catholics believe about the bread and wine at Mass, which religion revers Vishnu or which is the most popular days of the week and time for the Muslims to share in community prayer.
She said it is like a parable of the elephant and the blind men. “Talking about coverage of religious sensitivities is a little like trying to describe something that each of us only grasps the smallest bit of, yet we are so certain that we know the whole elephant looks like based on a small bit of the animal,” Debra explained.