Our second series of Creating Connections events, bringing together journalists and faith groups in cities across the UK, took place in the autumn of 2023. We visited Bradford, Coventry, Newcastle, Liverpool, Bristol and Norwich.
The aim of encouraging conversations about media coverage among diverse communities and faiths in Britain was changed overnight that autumn, by the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October.
In each city that followed, councillors, faith leaders and journalists discussed the way that events abroad created tension at home and the role of the local media in reporting this to their communities. Several common themes were explored.
Newcastle was the first event to follow the 7 October attack, and here Irim Ali, a city councillor, spoke of the responsibility of civic authorities to embed diversity and the role of the media in promoting understanding.
By the time of the next event in Liverpool, one month later, there were already signs of community tensions building across the country and BBC editors faced questions about bias in the corporation’s coverage of the conflict.
And a month later, when we went to Bristol, editors defended themselves against allegations that they had not done enough to explore the impact of the crisis in the Middle East on communities in Britain.
There was a recognition that journalists, to report well, needed a thorough understanding of the complexities involved in stories about religion and community tensions.
In fact, the role of the media and how it does its job in building community cohesion, was a central theme in all six cities. The Bishop of Newcastle, Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, spoke of the need for religious literacy among journalists so that they could understand the various faith traditions.
In Coventry, Manjit Kaur explained the many different strands of belief and practice within each faith tradition. As chair of the Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education in Coventry and Warwickshire, she made clear that religious literacy was essential for everyone in society, and it started with good religious education in schools.
A group of sixth-formers brought this home to the audience of faith leaders in Coventry, by explaining that they were aware and knowledgeable about religion through their contact with each other in schools within a diverse city.
They also provided a wake-up call to journalists in the room, saying they did not rely on radio, TV or newspapers for news, but on TikTok and other film-based social media platforms.
Listening to a similar story in Newcastle, editors were forced to explain that social media was a journalist’s best friend but also its worst enemy, with fake news and biased influencers challenging the place of truth in society.
But visual storytelling is the key for young people, a theme picked up especially at our event in Norwich, when university students studying journalism provided short TikTok films about Muslims, Jews and Quakers in their area.
This is a part of the country with one of the highest number of people who say they are non-religious, and yet religion looms large in small communities and in the city centre where the cathedral is a main tourist attraction.
In contrast, Bradford has about 65 per cent of its population affiliated to a religion, with the Bishop of Bradford, Tony Howarth, saying: “You can’t do Bradford without doing religion.”
Just as in our first series, the picture that emerged from all six cities was one where communication between local media and faith groups could be improved. Journalists were hungry for stories and faith groups were wary of the media and needed help to understand how to find local journalists and then trust them with their stories.
The series also covered a time when large job cuts were announced by the BBC, with local radio religion programmes being closed and amalgamated into regions, and the newspaper publisher Reach announcing job cuts.
The editors and journalists who were on our panels said those reporters who remained needed the stories more. There was more responsibility on them to explore and reflect diverse communities and they appealed to people to contact them. Email inboxes were overflowing, one said, but getting to know local journalists was the key to ensuring coverage.
The faith representatives wanted more opportunities to meet local media, not fewer, with more events such as this. They came away with a more positive understanding of the media, with one saying: “I was really struck by the integrity of the journalists who showed a real passion for reporting religion well.”
You can read reports from each of our cities here:
- Bradford, 19 September 2023
- Coventry, 5 October 2023
- Newcastle, 18 October 2023
- Liverpool, 9 November 2023
- Bristol, 22 November 2023
- Norwich, 30 November 2023
We are grateful to Culham St Gabriel’s Trust and the Saltley Trust for supporting Creating Connections 2023.
