CfMM report on British TV Reporting on the Grooming Gangs Taskforce
British TV reporting on the Grooming Gangs Taskforce highlights significant failings in the way TV news outlets covered the Home Secretary’s false claim that “almost all” those involved in grooming gangs were British Pakistani men *earlier this year.
The false assertion was made in an article for the Mail on Sunday in April 2023. But last weekend it was finally retracted – almost 6 months later – on 24 September following a complaint by CfMM. While the retraction was tucked away in the pages of the newspaper, the Home Secretary’s article received significant national – and almost unchallenged – coverage.
This despite the fact that British Pakistani groups, researchers and more than a dozen organisations, including the NSPCC and Victim Support, wrote to the Home Secretary and Prime Minister to highlight their concern at the Home Secretary’s remarks.
This report focusses specifically on how TV news outlets covered her false remarks.
The key insights of the report include:
- 40% of the mainstream TV coverage (excluding GB News) did not provide context to the Home Secretary’s remarks by referencing her own department’s report on the topic
- Sky News challenged the Home Secretary more than BBC News
- GB News focussed on the issue more than any other news outlet (59 clips vs. 25 from all other news outlets), provided significantly less context (only 7% referenced the Home Office report on the topic) and promoted a number of problematic tropes on the topic.
- The usage of ‘Pakistani Muslim’ alongside grooming was unchallenged across all news channels
The report concludes with a set of recommendations, including:
- Be consistent in the terminology used to describe child sex abuse offenders including avoiding the use of terms such as ‘grooming gangs’ that have no legal basis and have become highly racialised.
- Challenge those in authority with evidence live-on-air
- Provide context for the audience
- Avoid prejudicial and unevidenced claims
- Ensure a diversity of guests are interviewed
- Ensure responsible and nuanced reporting of child sexual abuse that recognises the scale, complexity and diversity of the issue
The Centre for Media Monitoring issued the following statement alongside the report: “The issue of child sexual abuse by groups of men, is a serious one, and one that rightly creates disgust and significant concern amongst the public. It is therefore vital that news reporting, especially on regulated TV channels, is done responsibly and consistently, avoiding the significant failings we have highlighted here.
We hope this report is taken seriously and the recommendations adopted by all TV news outlets, to avoid these failures in the future.”
Notes for editors:
- The Centre for Media Monitoring is a project under the Muslim Council of Britain’s Charitable Foundation
- The original article in the Mail on Sunday, with the correction underneath the article, is available at this link.
