Bringing situated knowledges, Islamic values, and identity into the newsroom: Muslim female journalists in Canadian media and counter-narratives to Islamophobic discourse.

Skip to main content An official website of the United States government Here's how you know Here's how you know Official websites use .gov A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. Secure .gov websites use HTTPS A lock ( Lock Locked padlock icon ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Search Log in Dashboard Publications Account settings Log out Search… Search NCBI Primary site navigation Search Logged in as: Dashboard Publications Account settings Log in Search PMC Full-Text Archive Search in PMC Journal List User Guide PERMALINK Copy As a library, NLM provides access to scientific literature. Inclusion in an NLM database does not imply endorsement of, or agreement with, the contents by NLM or the National Institutes of Health. Learn more: PMC Disclaimer | PMC Copyright Notice Journalism (Lond) . 2025 Apr 25;27(5):1465–1481. doi: 10.1177/14648849251338238 Search in PMC Search in PubMed View in NLM Catalog Add to search Bringing situated knowledges, Islamic values, and identity into the newsroom: Muslim female journalists in Canadian media and counter-narratives to Islamophobic discourse Hafsa Maqsood Hafsa Maqsood 1 University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada Find articles by Hafsa Maqsood 1, ✉ Author information Article notes Copyright and License information 1 University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada ✉ Hafsa Maqsood, Department of Communication and Media Studies, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada. Email: [email protected] Received 2024 Oct 16; Revised 2025 Jan 26; Accepted 2025 Apr 3; Collection date 2026 May. © The Author(s) 2025 This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ ) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page ( https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage ). PMC Copyright notice PMCID: PMC13061309  PMID: 41959681 Abstract This paper explores the experiences of Muslim women in Canadian journalism. Through a critical discourse analysis of qualitative interviews with eight Muslim female journalists, this research elucidates their experiences with a gendered-religious nuance considering the specificities of gendered Islamophobia. It further moves past the established discourse of racialized women in media facing burdens of representation to examine how they unite their lived experience as Muslim women with journalism epistemology to challenge gendered Islamophobic discourses and unite Islamic values with journalistic practice. Drawing on theoretical frameworks like critical race theory and Orientalism, this research ultimately finds that the women challenge dominant discourses of objectivity in journalism and Islamophobic discourses surrounding Muslim women. They accomplish this by drawing on Islamic principles in their professional practice, ultimately contesting a key tenet of Islamophobic, Orientalizing discourse that establishes Islam as antithetical to Western values and Muslims as unable to integrate into increasingly secular Western society. Keywords: Counter-narrative, critical discourse analysis, gender, gendered Islamophobia, Islamic values, journalism epistemology, Muslim women, race/ethnicity Introduction Journalism remains a key space for the production, reification, and contestation of various socio-political narratives and issues – including those relating to gender, race, and religion. This involves the unique role Western news media played, and continues to play, in cultivating and exacerbating fear and stereotypes about Islam and Muslims which entered North American public consciousness through newsworthy issues like oil and terrorism ( Saïd, 1981 ; Lean, 2012 ; Ogan et al., 2014 ). Canadian newsrooms themselves continue to be spaces of white- and male-dominance ( Mahtani 2001a , 2001b , 2009 ; Smith, 2015 ; Callison and Young, 2020 ), making it difficult to challenge certain hegemonic discourses of power. However, in recent decades, as more racialized people and women embark on news media careers, journalism literature increasingly turns to explore their experiences in such spaces. Additionally, with an “emotional turn” occurring in journalism that shifts away from the traditional objectivity discourse and highlights the importance of drawing on knowledge rooted in lived experience, there is a growing interest in rethinking journalism epistemology and practice ( Schudson, 2001 ; Wahl-Jorgensen, 2020 ; Young and Callison, 2020 ). This research explores this shift through the experiences of Muslim women in Canadian journalism as a group uniquely impacted by the role of Western media in generating and proliferating gendered Islamophobic discourse. I seek to answer the question: how are Muslim women in Canadian journalism uniting their situated knowledge and lived experience with journalism epistemology to challenge discourses of gendered Islamophobia in Canadian media? I answer this question through an analysis of qualitative interviews with eight Muslim female journalists in Canada who discuss their experiences in newsrooms. I argue that they challenge dominant discourses of objectivity in journalism and gendered Islamophobic discourses by drawing on Islamic principles – such as seeking justice, truth-telling, working towards public interest, accountability and repentance (tawbah), Islamic philosophies of gratefulness and mindfulness, and the Islamic concept of intentionality (niyyah) – in their journalism within the white-dominated structures of the Canadian news media industry. Background: Gendered Islamophobia Since September 11th, 2001, there has been a surge in literature concerning discrimination against Muslims and individuals of South Asian or Middle Eastern descent in North America and Europe ( Kaplan, 2006 ; Love, 2017 ; Sheridan, 2006 ; Wilkins-Laflamme, 2018 ). This body of scholarship also examines the role of media in perpetuating discriminatory, anti-Muslim rhetoric and encouraging Islamophobia ( Lean, 2012 ; Ogan et al., 2014 ; Von Sikorski et al., 2022 ). In a Canadian context, Wilkins-Laflamme (2018) measures the realities of negative attitudes toward Muslims and religious discrimination in Canada. She finds that across almost all regions, “respondents on average like Muslims the least, compared to Whites, Catholics, Aboriginal peoples, and racial minorities” ( Wilkins-Laflamme, 2018 : 96). Aside from research examining Islamophobia as a general form of discrimination, few studies are dedicated to exploring gendered Islamophobia – specific to the Othering or discrimination experienced by Muslim women in the United States, Canada, and Europe – and how that is perpetuated in (primarily news) media ( Al-Hejin, 2015 ; Hirji, 2021 ; Terman, 2017 ; Thomas, 2015 ). Several of these studies expand on the impact of negative media representations on Muslim women exposed to them, and their everyday lives ( Khokhar, 2022 ; Nagra, 2018 ; Scharff, 2011 ). The prejudice against Muslim women is a dual oppression that combines Islamophobia with sexism. Zine (2006) refers to this as “gendered Islamophobia,” defining it as “specific forms of ethno-religious and racialized discrimination leveled at Muslim women that proceed from historically contextualized negative stereotypes that inform individual and systemic forms of oppression” (p. 240). The stereotypes surrounding Muslim women commonly represent them as backwards and old-fashioned, especially in terms of the way they dress, and passive victims of misogyny that have no say in the ways they live – the antithesis of the supposedly liberated Western woman ( Khokhar, 2022 ; Zine, 2006 ). Muslim women who wear the veil or hijab and/or niqab are the focus of such stereotypes by virtue of being visibly Muslim with the veil visually signifying their religion. These representations are not new to a post-9/11 society and harken back to Saïd’s (1979) discussion of Orientalism where a gendered Orientalising gaze enacted on Muslim female bodies constructs them as either passive victims or hypersexualized, mysterious, and exotic in service of the male gaze – both key to constructing her as an inferior Other ( Bullock and Jafri, 2000 ; Hirji, 2021 ). Multiple studies on the representation of Muslim women in Western media find mainstream media, particularly news, to be a significant vehicle of producing and reproducing these stereotypes ( Bullock and Jafri, 2000 ; Al-Hejin, 2015 ; Terman, 2017 ; Thomas, 2015 ). Thomas (2015) analyzes 80 Canadian newspaper articles and government news releases about the December 2011 announcement of the niqab ban in Canadian citizenship ceremonies. She finds that Muslim female perspectives were heavily left out of the reporting despite them being the primary stakeholders influenced by the ban ( Thomas, 2015 ). Meanwhile, the mainstream media favoured official discourses from sources like the government or former immigration minister Jason Kenney, who introduced the ban. Thomas (2015) argues that “these views homogenized Muslim women rather than illustrating the diversity of their experiences and practices,” continued to frame the niqab as a threat to Canada’s national imaginary of being a welcoming, tolerant, and multicultural nation, and reinforced the perception “that certain Islamic practices contradict Western values” (p. 198). This study, like the others, establishes how mainstream media reproduces stereotypes about Muslim women and further entrenches them into Western public consciousness as the media is their primary source of knowledge and exposure to Muslim women. This body of literature is important to understand the role of media in propagating gendered Islamophobia and stereotypes, establishing its very real repercussions on Muslim women living in Western countries; however, scarcely does the literature turn to media production spaces and newsrooms themselves as the arena of study. Literature review: Muslims in journalism, media, and professional spaces Scholarship on Muslims (irrespective of gender) in professional spaces, much less journalism or media fields, in North America is exceptionally scarce. Therefore, this section first turns to literature exploring the experiences of Muslim journalists in Muslim-majority countries before moving into a wider discussion of Muslims, and particularly Muslim women, in digital media and other professional workspaces in Canada and America to draw from these two scholarly spheres in tandem for the aims of this research. Analysing surveys of almost 1600 journalists in Arab countries, Pakistan, and Indonesia, Pintak (2014) argues: while a variety of political, economic and social factors shape the unique worldviews of reporters and editors, […] a common thread that binds them is the degree to which – consciously or not – Islamic values shape their approach to the mission of journalism as they struggle to: (1) report the truth in societies where information has long been suppressed; (2) achieve social justice and political rights; and (3) balance international professional standards with the values of their religion and culture. (p. 483) He finds that these journalists’ view their journalistic values and standards of practice through a prism influenced by their Muslim identity in that they draw on Islamic obligations of truth-telling, seeking justice, as well as the collectivist ideology embedded in the religion that largely values working towards public interest in their reporting ( Pintak, 2014 ). Muchtar et al. (2017) add to these findings surveying journalists in twelve Muslim-majority countries across Africa, Asia, and Europe. They identify four key principles of an Islamic perspective to journalism adding “pedagogy” and “moderation” to “truth-telling” and “seeking the best for the public interest” ( Muchtar et al., 2017 ). With regards to pedagogy, aligning with the high value Islam places on the seeking of knowledge, the scholars find “journalists are keen to act as pedagogues, educators, and teachers, in addition to promoting cultural diversity” in the studied countries ( Muchtar et al., 2017 ). Unlike Pintak (2014) , Muchtar et al. (2017) assert that these journalists’ roles “are not so much shaped by a distinctively Islamic worldview as they were by the political, economic, and socio-cultural context in which the journalists operate”; however, they acknowledge that those principles “are often differently understood and enacted across the Islamic world, within and between countries” and can be generally embedded in the sociocultural frameworks or ways of being in these countries (pp. 570-571). Neither study extends to Muslim journalists operating in Western countries. Whether these journalists apply Islamic worldviews and principles on an individual level in their work and how compatible they find these views with Western journalistic practices is yet to be explored. This research expands on these findings by further testing them in a Canadian context. Although the experiences of Muslim journalists are scarce in academia, some journalists have taken to journalism itself or editorial writing to publicly express and discuss their experiences. In Islamic Horizons , a bi-monthly magazine published by the Islamic Society of North America, Muslim African-American journalist Abdur-Rahman (2019) reflects on his experiences as a journalist in a post-9/11 America. He describes how he is frequently assigned to write about 9/11 and cover the annual ceremonies, often being reminded through his work that people still associate Islam with terrorism and facing some racism ( Abdur-Rahman, 2019 ). He says that he “was considered a unique commodity [by his editors],” drawing attention to a commodification and essentialization of Muslim journalists due to their ability to penetrate Muslim communities for stories ( Abdur-Rahman, 2019 : 40). Yet, he embodies the aforementioned Islamic principle of pedagogy, taking his work as an opportunity to educate the public, arguing that “recording history as it unfolds is important, but educating readers about the essence of Islam is critical in these unsettling times” ( Abdur-Rahman, 2019 : 40). Similarly, Khalid (2016) , a hijab-wearing Muslim female reporter for National Public Radio (NPR), writes of her experience in an article published by NPR titled “What it Was Like as a Muslim to Cover the Election” – referring to the 2016 United States presidential election won by Donald Trump. Khalid was assigned by NPR to cover demographics and politics across America during the election, attending rallies, town halls, and following around door-to-door canvassers. This particular election was characterized partly by debates on Muslim presence in America, involving exacerbations of Islamophobia, something that brought Khalid to the point of telling her editor, “if I had known my sheer existence – just the idea of being Muslim – would be a debatable issue in the 2016 election, I would never have signed up to do this job” ( Khalid, 2016 : 3). Yet, she did it anyways, recalling she was often brought to tears (in private) by prejudice experienced on the field and the hurling of racist and Islamophobic slurs at her both online via Twitter and in person – something she attributes to being a visible, identifiable Muslim by virtue of her headscarf. Her experiences imply that the responsibility of pedagogy often seemed thrust upon her leading to the tiresome effort of spending time trying to challenge people’s preconceptions; however, other times she felt she had to hold her tongue, reminding herself “it’s my job to hear what voters say, not argue with them” ( Khalid, 2016 : 40). Key to note regarding her experiences as a visibly Muslim journalist is that people saw her as Muslim first, not as a journalist, and she eventually became “accustomed during the campaign to the idea that Muslims were seen as un-American” ( Khalid, 2016 : 47) – not unlike Abdur-Rahman (2019) saying “such is life” reflecting on racist/Islamophobic comments made at him during reporting (p. 40). Although both these journalists’ experiences are largely autobiographical, they allow insight into the nuances faced by Muslim journalists in North America, something this paper affords academic, scholarly attention. Other studies that analyze the experiences of Muslim professionals in North America provide valuable insights into this area of research. Exploring the marginalization of Muslim women in Canada, Nagra (2018) interviews Muslim women both in school and the workplace finding that “they are expected to be spokespersons for all Muslim women” and are criticized if they refuse (p. 273). This is in-line with some of the reflections of the journalists cited above often doing the exhausting pedagogical work of speaking for Muslims and trying to correct misconceptions. Regarding the experiences of veiled Muslim women in specific, Nagra (2018) notes that they feel they must constantly defend their religious choice to wear hijab, which is often ridiculed or dismissed. Furthermore, they are encouraged or asked to remove the hijab which is tied to processes of modernization and assimilation, “imposing Western notions of femininity onto Muslim women” ( Nagra, 2018 : 271). In her piece, Khalid (2016) mentions that she did remove her scarf a couple of times when threats to her safety were a legitimate concern and she could not be accompanied by a producer, demonstrating the reality of Nagra’s (2018) findings in the field of journalism. In the workplace, Nagra (2018) notes that Muslim women also face “‘racially’ specific notions of femininity” influenced by gendered stereotypes of “women seen as docile and submissive […] [and] imagined as incompetent, leading ultimately to their professional marginalization” ( Nagra, 2018 : 274). Such gendered stereotypes are further exacerbated by gendered Islamophobic stereotypes of Muslim women “lacking agency.” Hirji (2021) offers one of the few scholarly analyses of Muslim women in digital spaces, examining online instances of resistance by Muslim activists and political leaders Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, Instagram influencer Ayesha Malik, and “the largely anonymous women who participated in #MosqueMeToo, encouraged by the journalist and activist Mona Eltahawy” (p. 79). Although she does not interview these women, her analysis of their content concludes that they engage with digital social media as a tool “to speak out and to counter hegemonic expectations, a necessary but perilous task in Islamophobic times” ( Hirji, 2021 : 89). Her study also looks at public audience reception of the Muslim women’s posts and finds that the women – most of them public figures as journalists tend to be – face constant critique, policing, and efforts to silence them. This is similar to the findings of Maqsood’s (2021) honours thesis dissertation looking at audience reception of Muslim Indian-American comedian Hasan Minhaj’s political satire show Patriot Act which, due to its focus on contemporary political affairs, was often viewed as a form of entertainment journalism. Maqsood (2021) finds that Minhaj’s public contestation of Islamophobic and Orientalist stereotypes was often faced with audiences exhibiting a discomfort with his decentering of whiteness and proposing of counter-narratives to dominant hegemonic discourse. However, she argues that the reactionary comments show how Minhaj disrupts notions of racial superiority, prevents the recentering of whiteness, and challenges Islamophobic narratives, while promoting more positive and inclusive representations of Muslims in mainstream media ( Maqsood, 2021 : 66). While both Maqsood (2021) and Hirji (2021) explore Muslims in digital, public spaces, neither addresses their experiences in depth. Nagra (2018) discusses Muslim women in professional settings but does not focus on their careers or whether they engage with media or public knowledge production. Nevertheless, these scholars and journalists highlight the racialized and gendered challenges Muslims, particularly Muslim women, face in professional workspaces in North America. What makes mainstream media particularly vital to explore is the fact that Muslim women have predominantly been studied as missing from these spaces (either in the content or in roles of production), misrepresented by the media, or grouped together under a racialized monolith even though the literature elucidates the nuanced ways they face discrimination in Western media. Thus, this paper expands on the existing scholarship by focusing on the experiences of Muslim female journalists in Canada and how they unite their situated knowledge and lived experience with journalism’s prolific and public role in representation and knowledge production to challenge discourse of gendered Islamophobia. Methodology and research design This research employs semi-structured qualitative interviews to collect data which is then analysed using critical discourse analysis (CDA) and textual analysis. Semi-structured qualitative interviews involve asking open-ended questions that are built upon through the interview process based on how participants answer. They allow participants to discuss experiences and use storytelling to answer questions. A textual analysis is used to determine and interpret the content or characteristics of aural or visual messages in a media text, while critical discourse analysis examines the use of language as a form of social practice ( Janks, 1997 ). Approached through the lens of critical race theory (CRT), such qualitative interviews can also allow for counter-storytelling. Cho (2017) examines CRT-informed counter-storytelling in education studies and finds that “counter-stories can act as a medium through which minority students can unpack the power relations embedded in academic learning” (p. 666). Narrative becomes a medium through which CRT scholars can understand racialized experiences directly from equity-deserving and underrepresented groups. Cho (2017) argues that “counter-storytelling can be instrumental in unveiling the mask of objectivity, colorblindness, white supremacy, and meritocracy, endowing the teller with power to contest the status quo” (p. 669). CDA steps in to then examine the participants’ responses to elucidate what discursive themes emerge across all interviews, further understanding if those themes contest or maintain dominant narratives and power relations, or offer new discourses entirely. This research seeks to answer the questions: how are Muslim women in Canadian journalism uniting their situated knowledges and lived experiences as Muslims with journalism epistemology in Canadian media? Further, how do they counter Islamophobic stereotypes and Orientalist tropes, as well as racial and gender inequalities through in the workplace whilst balancing journalistic values of impartiality? The process to answer these questions took place in two stages: one-on-one qualitative interviews, and then a CRT-informed critical discourse analysis of what was said during the interviews. Eight Muslim-identifying female journalists who have worked and/or are still working in Canadian journalism were interviewed: Asmaa Malik, Latifa Abdin, Maria Iqbal, Noor Javed, Sadiya Ansari, Sahar Fatima, Shenaz Kermalli, and Shireen Ahmed. All have studied journalism in Canada while several also teach in Canadian journalism schools. As the pool of Muslim-identifying female journalists in Canada is rather small (with no religion-based diversity data on Canadian newsrooms for definitive numbers), it is important to acknowledge that the participants were not selected at random. Many of the participants were contacted via Twitter or through email. As public figures, these journalists share email addresses on their social media or profiles at their respective media outlets. This research was also approved by the Behavioural Research Ethics Board at the institution where it was conducted and established as low-risk, allowing for the consented use of interviewee names. Once interviews were conducted, lasting between forty-five minutes to an hour-and-a-half, they were transcribed verbatim, then analyzed for discursive, recurring themes most salient to the analysis. The key themes that emerged in the analysis are the varying Islamic values the women connect to their journalistic practice including seeking justice, truth-telling, working towards public interest, accountability and repentance (tawbah), compassion, Islamic philosophies of gratefulness and mindfulness, and the Islamic concept of intentionality (niyyah). The stories, commentary, and perspectives of the interviewees were contextualized and further explored using theories of critical race theory, Orientalism, and situated knowledge to reveal how dominant media or newsroom discourses are challenged by these journalists, and what counter-discourses they introduce. Lastly, this research explores a limited number of experiences, selected purposively and under a time constraint. To complete this research in the designated time frame, I included only those journalists that responded promptly. The participants work primarily in urban centers with most of them concentrated in Ontario, where the majority of visible minorities and the highest percentage of Muslims in Canada (6.7%) reside ( Statistics Canada, 2022 ), however some have held jobs across other provinces and the USA. In terms of Canadian newsroom data, a 2022 diversity survey from the Canadian Association of Journalists finds that across 242 newsrooms, 78% of journalists are white while 51% are women (with men still making up the majority in senior or leadership positions). The survey lacks data on religious affiliation; however, 8% of journalists are Asian, 3% Black, and 2% Middle Eastern – all the participants claimed either one or more of these racial identities. The data does not break down how much of each visible minority are women. Due to these factors all leading to a small sample size of eight, the testimonies, perspectives, and experiences of the interviewees cannot be generalized and taken as representative of all Muslim women in Canadian or North American journalism. However, their stories shed light on ongoing challenges in the newsroom faced by this unique demographic that sees themselves often misconstrued in media, along with provide insight on their under-researched presence in North American workplaces and what they are doing to contest dominant discourses and make space in the industry – ultimately opening the door for future research. Analysis and discussion: Islamic values and journalism Throughout the interviews, several of the journalists mention Islamic values or concepts when discussing their journalistic practices and ethics, some of which confirm earlier studies on Muslim journalists in Muslim-majority countries who draw on Islamic principles of truth, working towards public interest, and seeking justice ( Muchtar et al., 2017 ; Pintak, 2014 ). However, many of the journalists interviewed here add to this list, mentioning other values as well like compassion, accountability and repentance ( tawbah ), Islamic philosophies of gratefulness and mindfulness, and the Islamic concept of intentionality ( niyyah ). What differentiates this from the aforementioned scholarship is that these women do so in a Western nation: Canada. Therefore, through the intertwining of Islamic values in their journalism, not only do they exemplify uniting lived experiences with journalistic epistemology, but they also counter a key tenet of Islamophobic discourse that establishes Islam as antithetical to Western values, as well as Orientalist themes of Muslims as backwards and unable to integrate into “progressive” Western society ( Saïd, 1979 , 1981 ). Javed, Ahmed, and Iqbal all directly mention truth in relation to Islam when speaking on what informs some of their journalistic practices. Javed mentions seeking advice from a senior Muslim journalist in the industry and connects his words to her faith: He basically said, ‘as long as you’re fair and you’re telling the truth eventually, using the facts, then you don’t have anything to worry about.’ That really aligns with Islamic values too. We try to be fair, and we try to make sure that we’re telling the truth. Truth-telling in alignment with Islamic values is also a concept Ahmed connects to speaking out, even if it is to call out injustices or report on issues that occur in Muslim countries or Muslim communities themselves: They say in Islam that you speak the truth even if it’s against yourself. In covering Muslim women in sports, sometimes this community was not very kind to me [asking], ‘why are you always talking about bad things that are happening in Muslim places?’ I'm like, ‘I would rather be able to talk about them accurately and with nuance.’ I'm going to talk about Iran. This is not a Muslim thing because in Malaysia, Morocco, Egypt, Bosnia, Turkey, people can access stadiums. […] Why are you saying that it’s a Muslim thing? It's not a Muslim thing. It's your interpretation of that thing. Ahmed uses a rhetorical conversation to illustrate the kinds of reactions she has sometimes received from other Muslims asking why she calls out malpractices against Muslim women in sport in Iran, for instance, in her work (although she covers sports in general). The asking of such questions on the part of some Muslims in the community indicates an unease with how those stories may potentially further the Islamophobic narratives of violence and female oppression associated with Muslims. However, her response and examples create a key differentiation, implying that it is wrong on the part of the audience to label what occurs in Iran as a “Muslim thing.” Labelling it such conflates it with Islam and becomes part of what further reifies the stereotypical and Orientalist associations between Islam and oppression of women. Not only does she challenge stereotypical associations that some Muslims themselves seem to be making, but she also associates it with an Islamic principle of being a truth-teller even if that truth is against yourself or the communities you come from. Her statement echoes a hadith (narrated saying or tradition of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him) where the fourth caliphate Ali ibn Abi Ṭalib reports that engraved upon the Prophet’s sword were the sayings, “maintain relations with those who cut you off, speak the truth even if it is against yourself, and be good to one who is evil to you” (Ibn Al-Arabi, Hadith 1507). In quoting an Islamic prophetic teaching, Ahmed draws a distinct relationship between Islamic tradition and journalistic ethics, further contesting the Orientalist stereotype of Muslim “backwardness” as incongruent with Western civilization. Some of the journalists, like those in Pintak’s (2014) study, mention Islamic values subconsciously, without making a direct connection to Islam, but acknowledging that their ways of knowing are naturally informed by religious principles they grow up learning as Muslims. Abdin, for instance, says that Islamic teachings learned through community and lived experience become “intrinsically part of your value system or worldview.” She also cites the key role of journalism, in her opinion, to be a public service: “my opinion on what journalism is and what it should be is that it should be done in the interest of the public.” Muchtar et al. (2017) find that the principle of public interest in Islam, like speaking truth, is also: best illustrated by one of Prophet Muhammad’s sayings: ‘Whosoever of you sees an evil action, he must change it with his hand. If he is not able to do so, then with his tongue. If he is not able to do so then with his heart and this is the weakest of faith’ (Muslim, Hadith 34). (p. 559) In translating this principle to journalism, it looks like a deliberate effort “to nurture public conversation and contribute to a better society” ( Muchtar et al., 2017 : 567), which Abdin finds to be a crucial role of journalistic practice. Fatima, like Abdin, also speaks on the values as subtle and intrinsic. Yet, they influence the stories she finds important: “I have a set of values already that are informed by Islam in larger part, and they continue to inform the work that I do in the types of stories that feel important to me.” Reflecting on what those values may be and what stories she finds herself drawn to, she says, “stories around inequality or championing people who are often ignored is something that I'm really passionate about in journalism and maybe that comes from Islamic values.” The use of the term “maybe” implies that it is not always an explicitly drawn connection for these journalists. However, when asked to reflect on their journalistic practice in hindsight, many of them make connections between similar principles they associate with their religion and their journalistic epistemology. In listing examples of stories she finds important, Fatima points to the principle of justice in Islam which, according to the Islamic jurist Ibn Qayyim, “is the supreme goal and objective of Islam” ( Pintak, 2014 : 493). When asked about Islamic values and her journalism, Iqbal, who has recently been working on producing meaningful stories around aging, also says that the first value that came to mind for her was justice, concluding by stating, “maybe that is one of the reasons why I really love journalism. It’s such a part of who I am. Like exposing injustice and even compassion for individuals. […] Those are such important elements of Islam too.” Championing those that are ignored and speaking out against injustice in their journalism whilst connecting that to Islam is also particularly potent to consider alongside the fact that these are Muslim women doing this work. This contests the gendered Islamophobic discourse of Muslim women as silent victims of injustice unable to speak up for themselves, much less for another. By partaking in journalism as agents of change trying to hold truth to power, regardless of topic as these women cover a wide variety of journalism beats including sports, local news, Canadian politics, and criminal justice, these women exemplify the concept of agency and freedom that is often lacking in media discourses about Muslim women. Then, by further connecting that principle of justice to Islam, they challenge the discourse of associating in justice and oppression with the religion. Complimentary to justice and truth, Ahmed brings up accountability as an Islamic value that is also a key element of North American journalism ethics. For her, being trustworthy “is not to say that we are not going to make any mistakes. But what happens is, are you accountable for what you have done? Have you learned from what you have done?” As Ahmed speaks about accountability, she brings up the Islamic concept of tawba , the Arabic word for repentance which quite literally means “to return.” In a religious context, the term means not only returning from committing a sin or mistake, but resolving not to repeat it. Ahmed talks about tawba in the context of apologizing and taking accountability for mistakes made as a journalist: When you look at tawba , it’s an action. It's not just a prayer where you ask Allah for forgiveness, you have to actively ask a person you've wronged. Then you move forward, and part of that commitment is to never do it again so you're learning from your mistake. […] and I do bring that. I've made mistakes as a reporter, while reporting. You have to correct it. Seeking forgiveness and taking corrective action if a mistake is made in publishing that can potentially cause harm or spread misinformation is a crucial part of journalistic standards and practices. By creating a direct link between this element of journalism ethics and a concept of repentance rooted in Islamic tradition, Ahmed challenges the Islamophobic discourse of Islam as an archaic religion that cannot be integrated into an increasingly secular Western society. Ahmed and Javed also both reference the concept of intentionality ( niyyah ), another way of being that is drawn from their situated knowledge as Muslims. In the Islamic tradition, niyyah refers to a “pure” intention – typically in the form of doing an action for the sake of God – but also involves being deeply conscious of your actions and detaching them from one’s own individual gain. Ahmed says: I'm taking intentionality into everything I do, even when I teach [journalism]. What is the purpose of you doing this? Because we're taught about niyyah , everything we do is about intention. [The students] don’t know anything about Islam so they have no idea that I'm bringing practical elements of faith into teaching journalism. […] [But] it's logical. Be intentional about what you can, be honest, be forthright, be transparent. These are all things that are prescribed to us [as Muslims]. It's not a far jump to ask them to do it as journalists. Here, Ahmed describes how she brings this principle of intentionality and being conscious of one’s actions into her journalism pedagogy. The use of the terms “practical” and “logical” when speaking about niyyah and journalism draws connections between Islam and praxis, implying it to be common sensical. This contests the Orientalist notion of Islam as archaic and impractical as well as the greater secularist discourse that deems religion to be illogical and not useful for navigating modern life. Moreover, she says going from what Muslims are “prescribed” to do in their religion to applying that in journalism is “not a far jump,” emphasizing that it is not a difficult task to unite Islamic values with journalistic epistemology. Kermalli, who also teaches journalism, concurs with the naturalness of this unification: I find that my Islamic identity and principles very much complement journalism, the core tenants of journalism. They work really well in tandem with each other. I've always felt from a young age that when I practice journalism, I'm practicing Islam in a way because they are not in conflict with each other. There's a really cool synergy between the two. She, like Ahmed, brings this “synergy” into her journalism pedagogy. By describing practicing journalism as a form of practicing her faith, she emphasizes a natural congruity where journalism quite literally feels like an act of practicing Islam. The way she frames her practice as a part of her religion demonstrates an embodiment of situated knowledge as imbued in doing journalism. Mahtani’s (2001a) research finds that racialized journalists and particularly women (white or racialized) “employed in Canadian broadcasting journalism often appear to participate in news production that may sustain racist and misogynistic ideologies in order to advance their careers” (p. 364). Drawing from these findings, the Muslim women interviewed here were asked if they still felt that was the case for them, and why or why not? All the journalists acknowledged this still happens where they have observed not just people partaking in reproducing those narratives, but also “racialized silences” ( Mahtani, 2009 ) where they feel like the cannot speak up. However, when reflecting on their own practice, all answered no to this question, asserting they have never felt the pressure to silence themselves lest they are prohibited from advancing in their careers for speaking out. In the cases they do decide not to speak out, they describe that as a matter of choice and refusal. With regards to reproducing racist and misogynistic rhetoric, all eight of the journalists expressed that they have not partaken in that either nor felt the need to. Javed and Kermalli particularly cite religious values and personal belief systems as their reasons for that. Kermalli finds that if she ever did that, she would “be compromising [her] personal beliefs,” which she establishes earlier to come from Islam. Likewise, Javed says: I've never felt like I've had to sell myself short or lose my ethics. For me, I've always been, and this is kind of religious, but I've always had a really pure intention about why I'm doing this. I think my journalism has always been driven by my intention, which was always, number one, to improve the image of Muslims. Here, truthfulness and niyyah (intentionality) does not just apply to what the journalists’ write in an article or put in a story, but also to how they carry themselves in newsrooms and their overarching journalistic goals. For Javed, “improv[ing] the image of Muslims” has been her number one goal in journalism – a goal that at its core challenges Islamophobic, racist, or gendered Islamophobic ideologies instead of reproducing them. Another theme that emerges across several of the interviews that compliments the journalists’ principles of intentionality is gratitude and mindfulness – particularly expressing gratitude towards God. This includes gratitude for life as well as journalistic opportunities and supports their intentions to make their contributions worthwhile and in the service of the public. They demonstrate this not only by saying Alhamdulillah (praise be to God or thank God) at various points throughout the interviews, but also by deliberately mentioning a gratitude to God for certain opportunities. Javed, for instance, speaks about how she took over a beat at the Toronto Star that no one wanted at the time: It was the beat to cover the politics of the suburbs. It was the beat that nobody wanted because nobody lives in the suburbs. I live in the suburbs, and I was like, ‘I want to cover it.’ I ended up, and this is kind of religious, but I think thanks to Allah, I actually ended up doing so well on that beat that I got nominated for three national newspaper awards. Her words demonstrate and incorporation of Islamic philosophies of gratefulness, to keep oneself humble, in her work. She cites this as evidence of her “pure intentions,” or niyyah , to do work that she is proud of that serves the public in some way. Ahmed describes how she has started writing an online newsletter for CBC Sports called “Joy Drop” where every week on Friday she shares joyful moments or stories from the world of sport, sometimes drawing on her own experiences. She says it unites several aspects of what she is passionate about including finding gratitude, joy, and humour in life: I bring a humor at the same time, and that's something that my boss loves. I write critically about a lot of things but he's like, ‘you're actually really funny and I want people to know this.’ And I was like, ‘ Alhamdulillah , I feel like gratitude is a part of my practice and being happy about stuff. I like joy, I like a lot of joy.’ So, he was like, ‘let's do something with that.’ Recounting her conversation with her boss who encouraged her to start writing Joy Drop, Ahmed reveals that her Islamic practice of gratefulness (she uses the Arabic work for thanking God), informs her love for finding joy and laughter even though her journalism focuses on revealing injustices in the sports world. Ahmed identifying with joy and humour – along with her boss recognizing those qualities – are also significant here as a common Islamophobic stereotype (albeit a gendered one that typically applies to Muslim males) is that Muslims are unable to “take a joke” ( Miles, 2015 ). According to Miles (2015) , the ability to “take a joke” and be humourous is also perceived as a mark of perspective where people who can “see the funny side” are deemed more open-minded and less likely to have extremist views. Therefore, “to claim that Muslims lack a sense of humour and cannot take a joke is to claim that they are unintelligent, un-English, lack perspective, and are not worthy of friendship” ( Miles, 2015 : 170), further supporting the stereotype that Muslims are violent and irrational. Ahmed identifying with qualities of joyousness and humour, relating them to her religion and gratitude, and enacting them in her journalistic practice challenges that stereotype and draws Muslim women into that discourse of Islam and humour. By drawing on Islamic values in their journalism in general, these women contest the discourse of Islam as antithetical to Western values whilst supporting the concept of situated knowledge, from a religious standpoint, being incorporated into journalism epistemology. Conclusion This paper discursively explores the experiences of Muslim women in Canadian journalism and offers critical insight into how these women unite their situated knowledges and lived experiences as Muslims with journalism epistemology to challenge discourses of gendered Islamophobia and Orientalist stereotyping. Through a critical discourse analysis of eight qualitative interviews, this research demonstrates that the women interviewed (either consciously or intrinsically) unite Islamic values like truth-telling, working towards public interest, seeking justice, compassion, accountability and repentance ( tawbah ), Islamic philosophies of gratefulness and mindfulness, and intentionality ( niyyah ) with their journalistic practice, viewing them as complementary. Doing so ultimately counters a key tenet of Islamophobic discourse: that Islam is antithetical to Western values and poses a threat to the West. It also contests Orientalist themes of Islam as backwards and a religion that cannot be integrated into “progressive” Western society. By drawing on these values in their journalism and attributing some of the work they do to Islamic principles, the women propose a counter-narrative to the manufactured Orientalist binary between Islam and what is deemed a “Western” value system. Further, it is significant that it is Muslim women who do this (six of them wear hijab or niqab), as it challenges the dominant gendered stereotypes of Muslim women and hijab (exacerbated by news media) that portray hijab as an obstacle to progress and an impediment to the social integration of Muslim women in the West. Here, not only do the women prove social integration, but also professional integration in white-dominated workplaces like Canadian newsrooms, ultimately challenging the white hegemony of newsroom structures by making “space for people who were never intended to be part of the system,” as Ahmed puts it. In a more expansive project, allowing for greater time and scope, more journalists across other parts of the country and the United States could be interviewed. Such research could also explore differences and nuances in experience when it comes to the medium of journalistic practice as most of the women interviewed focused on digital or print journalism with limited podcasting and broadcasting work. Additionally, this research reaches deeply into the intersectional specificity of Muslim women. A study on Muslim journalists in North America in general could offer broader and inclusive insight into these themes and an intriguing comparative analysis into whether these themes play out differently through gender as gendered stereotypes and Orientalist discourses about Muslim men are quite different from those applied to women. Despite these limitations, this work contributes to the heavily under-researched topic of Muslim women in North American workspaces in general, much less media or journalism. It contests some of the findings of earlier research on racialized women in media while also adding to that discourse with a gendered-religious nuance, instead of approaching racialized people and their experiences as a monolith. Moreover, this research significantly expands on the limited research on Muslim journalists which focuses on those practicing in Muslim-majority countries (irrespective of gender), offering a unique perspective into Muslim journalists operating in a country where the media played a role in exacerbating stereotypes about them – the very stereotypes, rhetoric, and discourses they now challenge. Additionally, this paper demonstrates a slow but steady change in Canadian newsrooms. Although microaggressions still occur, Islamophobia – and specifically gendered Islamophobia – still exists both within newsrooms and in media, certain roles and opportunities are still gatekept and difficult to break into, tokenization still occurs, and news audiences are still approached as predominantly white, these women establish that innovation in these spaces is possible and occurring. Their words and experiences demonstrate that presence is powerful. It can lead to different forms of innovation in Canadian newsrooms, it can challenge stereotypes about Muslim women and Islam as antithetical to Western values, and it can create space for solidarity and community, shifting from a repetitive discourse of hate to a discourse of love and support that can make battling the aforementioned challenges a little easier. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Dr Kamal Al-Solaylee and Dr Minelle Mahtani for their assistance in supervising this research. Also, Dr Mary-Lynn Young for her editorial support and encouragement. Many thanks to the interviewees as well for their time and sharing their experiences with me. Author biography Hafsa Maqsood is currently a PhD student in Communications and Media Studies at the University of Calgary. Her research interests focus on Islamophobia, journalism, representation, discourse, counter-narrative, and identity. Hafsa’s current research is on Palestinian diasporic anticolonial resistance on visual social media platforms, counter-visuality, and negotiated representations of Palestine in western news discourse. Footnotes The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding: The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: this work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Ethical statement Ethical approval This research was given ethics approval by the Behavioural Research Ethics Board at the University of British Columbia (certificate number H22-03244) on January 11, 2023. All interviewees also signed written informed consent forms. ORCID iD Hafsa Maqsood https://orcid.org/0009-0004-1300-7575 References Abdur-Rahman S. (2019) A Muslim African-American journalist working in post-9/11 America. Islamic Horizons 48(2): 40–41. [ Google Scholar ] Al-Hejin B. (2015) Covering Muslim women: Semantic macrostructures in BBC News. Discourse & Communication 9(1): 19–46. [ Google Scholar ] Bullock KH, Jafri GJ. (2000) Media (mis)representations: Muslim women in the Canadian nation. Canadian Woman Studies 20(2): 35. [ Google Scholar ] Callison C, Young ML. (2020) Reckoning: Journalism's Limits and Possibilities. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. [ Google Scholar ] Cho H. (2017) Racism and linguicism: engaging language minority pre-service teachers in counter-storytelling. Race, Ethnicity and Education 20(5): 666–680. [ Google Scholar ] Hirji F. (2021) Claiming our space: Muslim women, activism, and social media. Islamophobia Studies Journal 6(1): 78–92. [ Google Scholar ] Janks H. (1997) Critical discourse analysis as a research tool. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 18(3): 329–342. [ Google Scholar ] Kaplan J. (2006) Islamophobia in America? september 11 and islamophobic hate crime. Terrorism and Political Violence 18(1): 1–33. [ Google Scholar ] Khalid A. (2016) Reporter’s Notebook: What it Was like as a Muslim to Cover the Election. NPR. Available at: https://www.npr.org/2016/12/07/504486620/reporters-notebook-what-a-muslim-on-the-campaign-trail-in-2016 [ Google Scholar ] Khokhar FJ. (2022) Reclaiming the narrative: gendered islamophobia, its impacts and responses from Muslim women. Social Identities 28(2): 267–281. [ Google Scholar ] Lean N. (2012) The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims. London: Pluto Press. https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca [ Google Scholar ] Love E. (2017) Islamophobia and Racism in America. Manhattan: New York University Press. https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca [ Google Scholar ] Mahtani M. (2001. a) Mapping the meanings of “racism” and “feminism” among women television broadcast journalists in Canada. In: Blee KM. (ed) Feminism and Antiracism: International Struggles for Justice. New York: New York University Press, 349–366. [ Google Scholar ] Mahtani M. (2001. b) Representing minorities: Canadian media and minority identities. Canadian Ethnic Studies Journal 33(3): 1–32. [ Google Scholar ] Mahtani M. (2009) Racialized geographies of news consumption and production: contaminated memories and racialized silences. Geojournal 74(3): 257–264. [ Google Scholar ] Maqsood H. (2021) Comedy as Counter-narrative: Examining Patriot Act and its Reception. Undergraduate Honour's Thesis. Calgary: University of Calgary. https://arts.ucalgary.ca/sites/default/files/teams/21/H.-Maqsood-Honours-Theisis-Comedy-as-Counter-narrative.pdf [ Google Scholar ] Miles T. (2015) Halal? Ha! LOL: an examination of Muslim online comedy as counter-narrative. Comedy Studies 6(2): 167–178. [ Google Scholar ] Muchtar N, Hamada BI, Hanitzsch T, et al. (2017) Journalism and the islamic worldview: journalistic roles in Muslim-majority countries. Journalism Studies 18(5): 555–575. [ Google Scholar ] Nagra B. (2018) Cultural explanations of patriarchy, race, and everyday lives: marginalizing and “othering” Muslim women in Canada. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 38(2): 263–279. [ Google Scholar ] Ogan C, Willnat L, Pennington R, Bashir M. (2014) The rise of anti-Muslim prejudice: Media and Islamophobia in Europe and the United States. The International Communication Gazette 76(1): 27–46. [ Google Scholar ] Pintak L. (2014) Islam, identity and professional values: a study of journalists in three Muslim-majority regions. Journalism 15(4): 482–503. [ Google Scholar ] Saïd E. (1979) Orientalism. Gurgaon: Vintage Books. [ Google Scholar ] Saïd R. (1981) Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World. Gurgaon: Vintage Books. [ Google Scholar ] Scharff C. (2011) Disarticulating feminism: individualization, neoliberalism and the othering of ‘Muslim women’. European Journal of Women's Studies 18(2): 119–134. [ Google Scholar ] Schudson M. (2001) The objectivity norm in American journalism. Journalism 2(2): 149–170. [ Google Scholar ] Sheridan LP. (2006) Islamophobia pre– and post–September 11th, 2001. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 21(3): 317–336. [ DOI ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ] Smith V. (2015) Outsiders Still: Why Women Journalists Love - and Leave - Their Newspaper Careers. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. [ Google Scholar ] Statistics Canada (2022) The Canadian Census: A Rich Portrait of the Country’s Religious and Ethnocultural Diversity. Statistics Canada. Available at: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/221026/dq221026b-eng.htm [ Google Scholar ] Terman R. (2017) Islamophobia and media portrayals of Muslim women: a computational text analysis of US news coverage. International Studies Quarterly 61(3): 489–502. [ Google Scholar ] Thomas J. (2015) Only if she shows her face: Canadian media portrayals of the niqab ban during citizenship ceremonies. Canadian Ethnic Studies 47(2): 187–201. [ Google Scholar ] von Sikorski C, Schmuck D, Matthes J, et al. (2022) Do journalists differentiate between Muslims and Islamist terrorists? A content analysis of terrorism news coverage. Journalism 23(6): 1171–1193. [ Google Scholar ] Wahl-Jorgensen K. (2020) An emotional turn in journalism studies? Digital Journalism 8(2): 175–194. [ Google Scholar ] Wilkins-Laflamme S. (2018) Islamophobia in Canada: measuring the realities of negative attitudes toward Muslims and religious discrimination. Canadian Review of Sociology 55(1): 86–110. [ DOI ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ] Young ML, Callison C. (2021) When gender, colonialism, and technology matter in a journalism startup. Journalism 22(1): 3–19. [ Google Scholar ] Zine J. (2006) Unveiled sentiments: gendered islamophobia and experiences of veiling among Muslim girls in a Canadian Islamic school. Equity & Excellence in Education 39(3): 239–252. [ Google Scholar ] Articles from Journalism (London, England) are provided here courtesy of SAGE Publications ACTIONS View on publisher site PDF (599.3 KB) Cite Collections Permalink PERMALINK Copy RESOURCES Similar articles Cited by other articles Links to NCBI Databases Cite Copy Download .nbib .nbib Format: AMA APA MLA NLM Add to Collections Create a new collection Add to an existing collection Name your collection * Choose a collection Unable to load your collection due to an error Please try again Add Cancel Follow NCBI NCBI on X (formerly known as Twitter) NCBI on Facebook NCBI on LinkedIn NCBI on GitHub NCBI RSS feed Connect with NLM NLM on X (formerly known as Twitter) NLM on Facebook NLM on YouTube National Library of Medicine 8600 Rockville Pike Bethesda, MD 20894 Web Policies FOIA HHS Vulnerability Disclosure Help Accessibility Careers NLM NIH HHS USA.gov Back to Top