Us and Them: A Journalist’s Investigation of Media, Muslims and the Middle East

Description

Since 9/11 the Australian media has been filled with bad-news stories that have focused on Arabs and Muslims. Gang rapes in Sydney. Asylum seekers. The wars in Afganistan and Iraq. The Cronulla riots. In the eyes of popular Australia, 'people of Middle Eastern appearance' inspire fear and mean trouble. Journalist and respected media commentator Peter Manning wanted to understand why such hysteria - led by government and driven by the media - exists. So he immersed himself in Arab and Muslim culture and history. He undertook a research project on the way Sydney's two major daily newspapers reported on Australian Arabs and Muslims, and on the Middle East, and he studies the language the papers used to describe people and events. The results will surprise anyone who believes in the ideal of an unbaised media. Manning also travelled to Indonesia, Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Palestine to experience Arab and Muslim culture first-hand. Us and Them tells the story of one man's quest to see justice done: to humanise rather than demonise the peopleour media - and us- tend to get so wrong. ISBN:9780091836931