GB News uses word ‘sharia’ twice as often as BBC News and Sky News combined
New study by Centre for Media Monitoring concludes that channel ‘hates Muslims’ and is obsessed with them
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GB News mentions the word “sharia” twice as often as BBC News and Sky News combined and appears to “hate Muslims”, according to the authors of a new report on the channel’s coverage of Islam.
The report, published on Tuesday by the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), found GB News had broadcast almost as much coverage of Muslims and Islam over two years as its larger rivals put together, and appeared to have an “unhealthy obsession” with the subject. It called on the broadcast watchdog Ofcom to “do its job and regulate the channel”.
The CfMM is a project of the Muslim Council of Britain that works with academics and journalists to research coverage of Islam and Muslims in the British media.
It examined GB News’s coverage between 1 October 2022 and 30 September 2024, after using the presence of key words to sift relevant segments, and concluded that the channel “hates Islam and Muslims”, adding: “It is hard to come to any other conclusion once you analyse GB News’s output as we have done.”
This does not mean, the report said, that every contributor or presenter hates Islam and Muslims or that GB News does not sometimes publish “good commentary”. “However,” it added, “structurally and systematically, we believe there is an endemic problem with GB News’ coverage of Islam and Muslims.”
Among the findings were that its use of the word “sharia” outstripped that of its rivals: GB News used the word 261 times, “mainly pertaining to the negative implications of Sharia law”, compared to 129 uses by BBC News and Sky News combined.
The report has been backed by former Tory peer Sayeeda Warsi and includes a foreword by former Ofcom partner for content and standards Stewart Purvis.
The researchers also found that GB News’s coverage of Muslims in general and the summer riots in particular were characterised by misinformation, conspiracy theories and “routine delegitimisation” of Muslims and Islam.
The broadcaster, the report says, was responsible for 62% of all video clips on the three UK news channels that mentioned Muslims and Islam in relation to the violence. Much of its coverage downplayed the Islamophobic nature of the riots, it adds, and implicated Muslims as instigators of the violence, which saw rioters terrorise communities and attack mosques and businesses.
In one example cited in the report, the channel broadcast inaccurate information about a man carrying a knife who was arrested in Southport on 30 July ahead of the riots. Presenter Simon Evans told viewers that the arrested man “seems to be of Muslim origin or of Muslim faith”. Although 32-year-old Jordan Davies, who admitted to the crime in Liverpool Crown Court, is not Muslim, CfMM said the channel had never issued a correction.
According to the report authors, GB News has also often discussed British Muslims in terms that echo the Great Replacement Theory, a racist conspiracy theory that world elites are colluding to replace white people in Europe, North America and Australasia with non-white Muslims.
In one such instance outlined by the report, Christine Hamilton, a frequent guest, said on the channel on October 19 2023: “We are the architects of our own demise. Between 2011 and 2021, the total population of the whole country went up by 3.5 million. 33% of that total, 1.2 million, were Muslims. OK, now, that speaks for itself.”
The report recommends that Ofcom take action against the channel given the “scale of anti-Muslim hatred”. Its authors say GB News’s coverage of Muslims breaches section 3.1 of the regulator’s programme code, which prohibits “hate speech which is likely to encourage criminal activity or lead to disorder”, and section 5, which specifically forbids misrepresentation of views and facts.
“The regulator needs to either stop the pretence that it is actually regulating the channel and enforcing impartiality, or do its job and regulate the channel,” the report concludes. “The evidence is overwhelming — now we need action.”
A GB News spokesperson called the report “inaccurate and defamatory” and “a cynical, self-serving attempt to silence free speech”.
“It proves exactly why a news organisation like GB News needs to exist and why it is succeeding,” they said. “We are concerned that at no point did this project of the Muslim Council of Britain contact GB News or its presenters to allow them to respond to these highly defamatory allegations.”
The spokesperson did not directly address any of the report’s findings.
In October, Ofcom issued GB News with a £100,000 fine over an appearance by Rishi Sunak in February, during which the regulator said the then Tory prime minister was given an “uncontested platform to promote the policies and performance of his government in a period preceding the UK general election”.
GB News claimed the ruling — its first sanction from the regulator — went “against journalists’ and broadcasters’ rights to make editorial judgements in line with the law”. It launched ongoing legal action in May when Ofcom first announced that Sunak’s appearance had breached impartiality rules, and has not yet been ordered to pay up as a result.
Ofcom said it had found GB News in breach of its rules a total of 12 times. It previously criticised five programmes in which Jacob Rees-Mogg, Esther McVey and Philip Davies, all sitting Conservative MPs, had acted as news readers and reporters.
“All regulated broadcasters must comply with our broadcasting rules,” said an Ofcom spokesperson. “We enforce these rules fairly and proportionately, acting independently and impartially at all times.”
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