Media in post-Sept. 11 era

Last week The Times of London had to issue a correction for a report on a poll commissioned by The Sun, its stablemate. In its Corrections and Clarifications section, Britain's newspaper of the record said its headline, "One in five British Muslims has sympathy for ISIS (Daesh)" did not accurately reflect the results of the opinion poll the story was based on. But The Sun did something far worse, printing the report on its front page with an inflammatory headline. The impression sought to be created was that Britain's Muslim community was a Trojan horse. Unlike the Sun, The Times issued a correction but many feel it was only to avoid censure by Britain's press watchdog. If it really wanted to undo the damage done to Muslims, it should have published the correction as a news item with an attention-grabbing headline. But this is too much to expect in post-Sept. 11 era. Even before the attacks on World Trade Center and the resulting war on terror, the Western media was not known for its objectivity when it came to things Islamic. But now everything seems to be OK. Thus we see the media evoking holy war, witch-hunt and revenge after an attack. What the media do is not merely assume who is behind an attack but take sides and cheer as governments and security agencies apprehend and torture innocent people. Even though the establishment media got it spectacularly wrong about the man or group behind the deadly attack in Norway, the habit of rushing to blame Muslims persists. No wonder, from his prison cell, the confessed mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik circulated a letter in January 2014 in which he gloated over how easy it was to fool the Western mainstream media into supporting his intended witchhunt on peaceful Muslims. This is what exactly happened. When word first broke of the mass shooting in Norway on July 22, 2011, there was little information available to suggest what party or parties were responsible. But this did not prevent the media and many right-wing figures declaring that tragedy was an act of “Islamic terrorism.” Thus the front page of next day's Sun rolled off the presses: “Al-Qaeda” Massacre: Norway's 9/11. By the time the newspaper hit the streets, Norwegian police had dismissed any links between the attacker and Al-Qaeda. But once it was established it was an act of a blue-blooded white male killing blue-blooded white males and females, some wanted to prove that this Norwegian terrorist was “not a Christian or a conservative.” According to some, he acted contrary to the teachings of the Bible. But if the accused is a Muslim, we must assume that he is only responding to the call of his faith. More or less the same situation obtains in India where some sections of the media depict someone as a terrorist not because he has been legally convicted of a crime, but more because his name is Muslim, he wears a beard, he lives in a specific (Muslim) area, attends a mosque or madrasa, carries Urdu pamphlets. etc. If there is a blast or terrorist attack, the culprit or culprits should be Muslim, a member of Indian Mujahideen, the Student Islamic Movement of India or any group allied to Al-Qaeda or an agent of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence. Within minutes of the blasts, the print and electronic manage to identify the culprits — even before the police reach the scene and victims’ bodies are removed. It does not matter that some of the major terror attacks — from Makkah Masjid to Ajmer shrine to Samjhauta — that were blamed on Muslims have been found to be handiwork of the RSS men and its offshoots. Margaret Thatcher once declared that sensational media coverage was really the oxygen that terrorist organizations need to survive. All should remember that it is also the oxygen on which right-wing outfits thrive.