Poor media coverage of news involving Muslims contributes to many people’s negative perception of Islam, said a news item in Union of Catholic Asian News (UCA News).

The significance lies in the date their story appeared: September 13, 1994 – nearly 29 years ago.

They were reporting on a forum on Islam held one month earlier, on 13 August, in Manila, the capital of the Philippines. Their report of the forum provided a snapshot of how Islam was reported then.

One of the better known of the 300 attendees was Dr Bilal Philips, the Jamaican-born Canadian who converted to Islam in 1972 and has since become a highly respected Islamic scholar and widely quoted speaker.

“Islam is perhaps the most misunderstood religion today,” he said then.

“Newspaper headlines such as ‘Muslim fundamentalists kidnap priest’ or ‘Muslim man runs amuck, kills three’ mislead people into thinking that Islam is a violent religion,” he told UCA News.

The media’s poor reporting on Muslim cases “is not the sole reason, but it plays a big role” in projecting a false image of Islam.

Islam’s image in international media, he said, “is one of backwardness, terrorism and other things that in truth have nothing to do with Islam.”

Philips appealed to media practitioners to observe professional ethics.

“It is important for them to verify reports first from Muslim representatives before writing and releasing reports. Careful research as well as honesty should be the basic ingredients in doing their work,” he said.

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