From the 9th of September to the 22nd of October 2018 we collected data from The Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Herald, The Independent, The Sun, The Sunday Times and The Times from their Sunday editions.
The Daily Mail: Over the first four Sundays published a total of five stories directly identifying the ethnicity or religion of the person involved. One of these was positive, one was neutral. The remaining three were negative and all related to terrorism in some way. Two directly identified ‘Muslim Extremism’. The remaining one identified terrorism also, but linked a report on DFID funding in Tanzania to funding of Hamas terror cells in Gaza.
The Guardian: In the initial four weeks ran three stories directly identifying a BME group, all of which were negative. One criticised some councils’ decision to cancel Black History Month. The second condemned the Home Office’s Hostile Environment Policy for the damage done to Windrush families. The final linked NHS overspending to the argument that asylum seekers were being drawn to the UK because of it.
The Herald: This was counted once and it was a positive story about the success of refugee resettlement in Bute.
The Independent: In the four Sunday’s covered ran three stories all of which were negative. One identified government budget cuts as enabling convicted terrorists to slip through the net and commit other offences. Another explained a report which linked the normalisation of racism in politics to a rise in hate crime reporting. The third was a direct quote from Alexander Temerko, describing Senior Tory Brexiteers as ‘political jihadis’.
The Sun: In the time period concerned, TheSun ran two negative stories. One identified a Polish nurse as having somehow duped the NHS into giving her a job, despite failing the mandatory English test. The second is a report on the capture of British man in deir ez-Zur by Kurdish forces. The headline identifies him as an ISIS fighter but the report acknowledges he claims to be a doctor.
The Sunday Times: Over the time considered, the Sunday Times ran seven articles. Five of these were negative, one of these was neutral and one was positive. The positive story related to a Black student’s experience at Cambridge University. The article identifies a lack of ethnic diversity at the University. The neutral story identifies ‘startling’ new figures which breakdown ethnic representation in universities, with Oxbridge coming last. Two of the negative articles related to ISIS (one was the same as reported in The Sun about the British Doctor). One of the negative stories was about racism in sport. Another was an opinion piece about Islamophobia. The final article was about the terrorist Andres Brevik and the controversy surrounding an upcoming movie about him.
The Times: Over a period of two weeks reported five stories identifying BME groups. Three were negative, one was positive and one was neutral. The positive story made no mention of the men as BME but referred to their business success. The neutral story quoted a Labour MP in the headline, stating that Ryanair had mishandled a recent incident of racial abuse on their aircraft. One negative story referenced a preacher’s renewed support for ISIS, another condemned Manchester Care Authority for failing to protect an Autistic woman from ‘Asian Males’ who attacked her and the final story tentatively externalises human trafficking as an issue ‘brought to’ Scotland.
Overall four stories on ethnic minorities were identified as positive, three were identified as neutral and the remaining twenty-four stories being negative. It means seventy seven percent of the 31 stories portrayed ethnic minorities in the negative. Very worrying.
We have an in-depth analysis of some of the stories coming out soon. Watch this space!