Dave Crouch of Media Workers Against the War takes on Channel 4’s Dispatches:
“The media must be so grateful to Jade Goody. Thanks to her and Big Brother they have a scapegoat for the racism that they themselves have made respectable. The same newspapers that fill their pages with hate for asylum-seekers, immigrants and multiculturalism suddenly declare themselves anti-racists.
“Not for one second have the print and broadcast media relented in their barrage of racism against Muslims. The latest example is Channel 4’s Dispatches documentary ‘Undercover Mosque’, broadcast on January 15. The documentary is a textbook example of Islamophobic reporting. It has set the right-wing blogosphere on fire; clips from the programme on YouTube have gone straight into the top ten.
“The message of ‘Undercover Mosque” is that, however ‘moderate’ Muslims claim to be, it is the fundamentalists who are really pulling the strings, using the cover of moderation to preach racism, bigotry and holy war.”
Dave also refers us to a detailed response to Channel 4 by Shafiq ur-Rehman, president of the UK Islamic Mission. See (pdf) here.