North West Islamic Media Forum

In 2006 there was an invitation to a meeting at the Manchester Central Mosque to discuss the denigration of Islam within the media and to open up a dialogue with representatives from the media. The meeting was attended by around 20 individuals from the media world including Leo Devine, head of BBC Northwest, Gordon Burns presenter of Northwest Tonight and Dr Wilfred Darlington and around 10 members of the mosque including the Imam.

As a media practitioner, with a deep interest in politics, Wilfred recognised that a way forward for Muslims was to become more active in domestic politics, a necessity of which is fluency in media skills. Wilfred took the idea to Leo Devine, head of BBC North West, who enthusiastically endorsed the proposal. The inaugural meeting of the North West Islamic Media Forum (NWIMF) took place on the 19 Jan 2006.

Once established the members of the forum felt that they wanted to be independent and criticise all media outlets including the BBC. The aim of the forum was to highlight inaccurate information and references to Islam which they felt purposely vilified Islam. There was also an effort to highlight any positive references made in the media. During the meetings there would be discussions regarding any recent articles in the media, news coverage and broadcasts.

Dr Darlington acted as the forum’s secretary whereby he would take notes which would form the proceedings of the meeting. Within a week of the meeting he would type them up and distribute them to the attendees for any amendments. He would then produce a final pdf of the minutes. Depending on what was discussed at the meetings he would also write to editors and to individuals who the forum had agreed to contact. The general theme of the correspondence was to correct terminology or to highlight where mistakes have been made by media organisations.

The forum was generally made up by a loose association of members; some came regularly where others attended once or twice. Members included local radio producers, leaders of faith based organisations and prominent Muslim public figures. There were also a number of corresponding members who followed the forums progress and kept in touch with them.

A secondary activity of the forum was the facilitating of filmmaking and media production in Islamic related subjects.

The scope of the forum was reviewed at times and it was agreed that it would be part of a wider umbrella organisation the North West Interfaith Media Forum. The proposal was for other groups to form under this umbrella and undertake similar work just in their relevant subject area.

There was also interest in establishing a North East Islamic Media Forum and discussions were made of how the NWIMF could support this initiative.

In 2006 there was an assumption that the errors coming up in the media around Islam and Muslims was as a result of ignorance or lack of information. By 2016 the Leveson Inquiry had highlighted the presses drive to create sales regardless of accuracy and the referendum (Brexit) had raised political tensions and a resulting rise in Islamophobia. The NWIMF members realised that the original aims of the forum were not achievable. They found that they were not even getting responses to their letters from editors as frequent misrepresentations of Islam became normalized. Since then the forum has been inactive.

The collection consists of material collected and created by the North West Islamic Media Forum in the course of the Forums business. This is principally:

• Lists of meeting attendees

• Agenda for each meeting

• Proceedings of the meetings

The collection also includes material supporting items on the agenda, in some cases they were sent out prior to the meeting for members to review and are often included in the appendix of the proceedings. This material includes scans of articles, extracts from websites, press releases, audio clips from radio shows, video clips from news reports, copies of emails and correspondence etc.

The collection is predominantly (although not exclusively) in the following file formats:

Word, Pdf, WAV, PNG, Jpeg, MP3, MOV, PowerPoint

At the start of the catalogue (GB3228.100/1) there are two documents which give an overview of the North West Islamic Media Forum and its work. At the end of the catalogue (GB3228.100/37) is an oral history carried out by the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Education Trust (carried out after the donation of the archive collection) with Dr Wilfred Darlington and Faisal Qureshi. These items provide a deeper context for the collection and the oral history interview includes some reflection on the Forum and its achievements.