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I confess that for most of the past decade I was convinced that the so-called Smoking Gun video purportedly showing Osama bin Laden describing the attacks on the World Trade Centre in 2001 was a fake. I believed it to be a lazy contrivance thrown together to convince a gullible public of the rightness of [...]

We all feel legitimately aggrieved when newspapers lend disproportionate coverage to fringe provocateurs in the Muslim community, magnifying the significance of their actions far beyond realities on the ground. We frequently beg for reprieve in the face of negative reporting concerning Muslims and their faith, demanding fairness in its place. Whatever happened to balance, we [...]

Dear Jonathan,1 I agree with Daniel Hannan about misrepresentation and the disproportionate coverage of Anjem Choudary’s gestures in the media.2 When Mr Choudary announced his plans to carry 500 empty coffins through Wootten Bassett, all our journalists were required to do was a little maths. Unless we are talking about matchbox coffins in a carrier [...]

Dear Editors, Explain to me, would you, what this means: ‘Sebastian Faulks outburst risks anger of Muslims’? Or this: ‘Sebastian Faulks has risked sparking Muslim outrage…’ Does it mean that you have not yet found any angry Muslims and you’re stirring? Or is it just that you’ve taken your risk assessment training a tad too [...]

My email to Eddy Mair on Radio 4’s PM programme this evening: Can you prove to me that the huge crowds witnessed on the streets of Khartoum after Friday prayers today were because of the teddy bear insult? If you go to any Muslim city anywhere in the world after Friday prayers you will witness [...]

A comment on a weblog regarding the current tendency for those opposed to Muslims to quote a piece of research which suggests that a quarter of us believe in conspiracy theories regarding the massacres on the London transport system in July 2005: redleader, Comment No. 626343, June 8 15:12, GBR EdmundWest, I agree that the [...]

Writing in The Guardian, Wednesday 16 August with a column entitled, The venomous media voices who think no Muslim is worth talking to I feel she makes some good points and has identified some real issues. It seems to me that she is one Commentator who has actually engaged with the British community and knows [...]

I woke up late this morning, but now I’m up it seems like one of those Stupid News days. There was one of those debates about Islamic extremism and the moderates on the Radio 4′s Today programme on my way into work. Yahya Birt made a useful contribution, but the same could not be said [...]

Okay, so I am writing again already. Prompted by the first comment left by yet another “anonymous” under my last post, something needs to be said about media-induced distress. I cannot say that I have no sympathy for sufferers of this ailment; indeed it would be hypocritical for me to deny the anxiety stirring power [...]

When I began writing several hours ago, having just turned off the Six O’Clock News in my car, I was pretty angry. I was foaming about the way Muslims have to react so stupidly every time a red flag is waved in front of us. Just after I became Muslim seven and a half years [...]

THE NATURE of the news media is that in general it only reports bad news; the exceptions may include sports news, visits by statesmen and royalty, finance news, and the like. We would not expect to see a report on the news dealing with the wonderful weather which hit Albania today, or the absence of [...]