The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, today defended a new study into the portrayal of Muslims and Islam in the UK print and broadcast media. The report entitled 'The Search for Common Ground' shows that during the period of investigation the national media overwhelming portrayed Muslims and Islam in a negative way. However, the report has been discredited by many of the national newspapers as being a 'whitewash'. The report claims that 'nine leading academics, professionals from the media industry and experts on Islam' helped in the research but the media highlighted that three of these are from the MCB (Muslim Council of Britain).

Journalist Nick Cohen, wrote in the Evening Standard newspaper "At a cost of £30,000 to the taxpayer, Mr Livingstone was allowing the MCB (Muslim Council of Britain) and its friends to rubbish a well-researched and balanced documentary [BBC Panorama] and dressing up the results as an impartial study".

During the press conference for the publication of the report, the Mayor said: "While there were some examples of good practice, one of the most startling findings of this report is that in one typical week in 2006, over 90% of the articles that referred to Islam and Muslims were negative. The overall picture presented by the media is that Islam is profoundly different from and a threat to the west.

In 12 out of 19 papers covered, the researchers concluded that every article carried was negative. 96% of tabloid coverage was assessed to be negative while 89% of broadsheet reporting was deemed to be negative.

They also found that Muslims in the national press were portrayed as being a threat to traditional British customs, that there was little or no common ground between the West and Islam and that the tone of language in many articles was emotive, immoderate, alarmist or abusive."

Click here for a summary of 'The Search for Common Ground' ( )
Click here to download the full report of 'The Search for Common Ground' (600KB, )
Click here to download a report of 'Muslims in London' [2005] (1.71MB, )