During November, only seven different topics appeared as the front page lead on the Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday. Here's the list, together with the number of times they appeared:
The X Factor - 12 days
Katie Price and/or Peter Andre - 6 days
Muslims - 3 days
Footballers - 3 days
Royal Wedding - 3 days
I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here - 2 days
Gordon Ramsay - 1 day
So for almost half the month, half-true (
at best) stories about reality TV shows dominated the Star's front page. Another ten front pages were wasted on the sex lives and family feuds of celebs, chefs and footballers. Three front pages were devoted to the Royal Wedding.
The only other stories splashed on the front page were about Muslims, and they all fitted the Star's usual agenda:
Why is it that the only times the Star ran with what might be called non-celebrity news, it's negative stories about Muslims?
Take a look at that last headline. For one thing, there was no actual, physical
'knife attack' but some disgusting, bullying threats posted on Facebook. So the headline isn't really true.
But, as
Minority Thought highlighted, look how it is
'Muslim' kids (or
'thugs', as they seem to prefer) against a
'Brit' kid.
The
Mail's report on the same incident carried the headline:
Why the need to talk about
'Brits' and '
whites' as separate from Muslims?
Them and us, us and them.
And when
the Sun wrote about the story, the
'white girl' was mentioned and the blame was placed solely on
'five Muslim schoolboys.'This singling out occurred in two other stories in recent weeks.
When a pig was removed from an Early Learning Centre (ELC) play set,
the Sun's headline said it was for
'religious reasons' and, in the story, claimed it was because the pig might:
upset Muslim and Jewish parents.
But as
Exclarotive pointed out, the
Mail's headline mentioned only one religion:
(The statement from ELC said:
‘We have taken the decision to reinstate the pigs and will no longer sell the set in international markets where it might be an issue.’)
The other story was about Rochdale's Christmas lights, which had a
small mention on the front page of the Daily Star on 19 November under the ludicrous headline
'Christmas 'nicked' by Muslims.' Had it been
'nicked'? No. But Rochdale Council had decided to put some 'Happy Eid' and 'Happy Diwali' lights up with the Christmas ones. So nothing had been
'nicked' and the Star could have run
'Christmas 'nicked' by Hindus' if they'd wanted. But they didn't.
As for the poppy burning on Remembrance Day, here's what
Richard Littlejohn said in the Mail:
They looked like the same crowd demonstrating outside the Old Bailey last week when that Muslim madwoman was convicted of stabbing MP Stephen Timms.
Well, except that there were
only three people outside the Old Bailey, and between 30 and 50 at the poppy burning. He went on:
Yet although 50 people took part in this atrocity, there were only three arrests - and judging by the pictures it was the counter-demonstrators from the so-called English Defence League who had their collars felt.
In fact,
eight people were arrested including two of the Muslims protestors.
But while the poppy burning incident got acres of media coverage, some of the reactions to it have not.
Press Not Sorry published
two posts showing the comments left on the English Defence League's Facebook page, where the home address of one of the Muslim protestors was, apparently, published. But the vile threats left on Facebook - to kill this protestor, to torture him, to burn him, his house and his family - didn't make the Star's front page. Or any other page.
And if the Star was interested in what Muslims do with poppies, they could have reported on the £20,963 raised by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association's poppy appeal drive in Croydon. The
local paper said the group was
'singled out for praise' by the Royal British Legion.
Their efforts received a
small mention in the Sun, but was ignored elsewhere.
A spate of incidents in Portsmouth have also been largely ignored.
In the days following the poppy burning:
An imam in Portsmouth has said he is saddened his mosque has been targeted twice in two days after remembrance poppies were burnt in London.
A poppy was painted on the front of the Jami mosque, on Victoria Road North in Southsea, on Friday and on Saturday 100 people staged a demonstration outside.
Hampshire police said there had been no arrests but that they would continue to monitor the situation.
Muhammad Muhi Uddin said he condemned Thursday's poppy burning.
And then:
A Muslim academy in Portsmouth has been the target of two hate crimes in the past fortnight, police have said.
In the first incident, a brick with a racist message on it was thrown into the Portsmouth Muslim Academy, on Old Commercial Road, on 13 November.
A beer bottle was then thrown through a window at the front of the building last Friday.
But neither the Star, Mail or Express decided these events or the poppy-selling efforts of young Muslims was important enough to tell their readers. Why not?
The situation at the Star has led to
Nick Lowles of Hope Not Hate writing to the rag's editor, Dawn Neesom, to ask that they
'tone down the shrill'. He explains:
Our first target is the Daily Star. We've gone through the past seven years of the newspaper and found hundreds of negative articles about Muslims - and very few positive. Many of the articles over-exaggerate the importance of tiny Muslim extremist groups while ignoring more mainstream Muslim opinion and use the words of these extremists to smear an entire faith. On other occasions they print inaccurate or slanted articles that whip up fear and mistrust.
We can only hope that this campaign for more responsible journalism has some effect. Until then, we will have to hope that the Star sticks to the pointless 'celebrity' tittle-tattle.
Posts
