Television Wrestles With Images of Islam

The pictures stream into Americans' living rooms around the clock: Islamic terrorist Osama bin Laden's bearded face, Muslim fighters battling with U.S. forces in Afghanistan or escaping to Muslim countries, and Islamic extremists ready to kill Americans in a twisted jihad.

Between the network news and the three 24-hour cable news stations, the images are almost inescapable and they seem to paint a relentlessly negative portrait of the Islamic world.

It could be grim stuff if you are a Muslim in the United States, and a full-on public relations nightmare if it's your job to look out for Muslims living here.

But surprisingly, some Muslim leaders in this country say television coverage of their faith hasn't been all bad. In fact, they say, all the attention focused on Islam has given them a unique opportunity to explain the Muslim world to an American public woefully uneducated about one of the world's fastest growing religions.

Those leaders also say when it comes to the Islamic angle of the story, the dominant television news theme since Sept. 11 has been one of tolerance and respect for Muslims, echoing and amplifying President George Bush's message. Like Bush, television reporters have been careful to make clear distinctions between Islamic terrorists such as Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorist network and peace-loving Muslims. "In general broadcast coverage has been pretty good. I would say there have been a lot of attempts to offer information about Islam, mostly accurate, some of it not so accurate, and some of it biased -- but I would say on the whole not so bad," says Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations, a Washington-based Islamic advocacy group.

Hooper says television news coverage of Islam is more accurate and features more tolerance than it would have just a decade ago because even though Muslims are still a tiny religious minority in the United States, they continue to move further into the American mainstream. "They are viewed as less foreign and exotic more so than even 10 years ago. It is harder to stereotype people when you are more familiar with them," Hooper said.

He and other Muslim leaders say coverage of the Sept. 11 attacks and the conflict in Afghanistan have given them a chance to appear on television talk shows and in news stories to explain Islamic beliefs and practices. "It is clear that people are hungry for information about Islam right now," Hooper said.

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