Islam and the West: How Do Background and Experience Influence How Photojournalists Cover Muslims? Professional Project in Three Parts by Elisa Day As part of the completion of a Master’s of Arts degree Missouri School of Journalism Fall, 2012 Committee Members: Prof. Jackie Bell, Project Chair Prof. David Rees Prof. Berkley Hudson ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wanted to thank all of my family and friends for their support during my pursuit of my (second) master’s degree. Especially, I wanted to thank my parents, Tom and Mary Day, for the myriad of ways that they provided me support both before and after my trip to Brussels, Belgium, and for how they took care of my dog, Riley, while I was gone; Daniel and Kathryn, Reece and Jace Smith, for taking care of my dog, Cullen, and for the encouragement (and care package) they sent me while in Brussels; and Tammy Thomas, for taking care of my dog, Dudley, while I was in Brussels. Knowing that my boys were taken care of made being away from them a little easier. I want to thank Paul and Val Bolls, for their advice and use of a power adapter, as well as housing me, my dogs, and the contents of my household, after I gave up my rental property; Rosie Cooper and Ashlee Kt, for the refreshing friendship and encouragement I found while on holiday in Edinburgh; Stella Ntambi, Helene Mbangu, and Maureen Lagos, who welcomed me into the family of the Brussels Church of Christ; and my family back at home at the Columbia Church of Christ for the notes and e-mails they sent me while I was gone. I want to thank Sharnee Garner, Stacy Hill, Cheryl Scott and Taylor Staten for the encouragement (and accountability) they provided after I returned home to the U.S. I don’t think I would have finished without your help. I want to thank the members of my committee for their encouragement and support: David Rees, Berkley Hudson, and especially Jackie Bell who served as my chair. Also, I would like to thank Gareth Harding for his guidance while in Brussels and for his assistance in finding my photo essay subjects; Tsveti Nacheva and Sebastiano Fumero for ii taking the time to be my photo essay’s subjects; and Wiktor Dabkowski, Jock Fistick, and Olivier Hoslet for sharing their opinions and experiences during our interviews. And finally, I want to thank the professional photographers that I interacted with during my internship at the Associated Press: Yves Logghe for sharing his knowledge and experience; Olivier Hoslet, Thierry Roge, and Georges Gobet for welcoming me into that circle of agency photographers who frequented the EU; and especially Virginia Mayo for being an amazing supervisor, editor, mentor and friend during my internship. My time in Brussels would not have been the same without her. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................................... iI Chapter I. Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1 II. Chronological Description of Activities (including field notes) ............................. 5 III. Evaluation of Project ............................................................................................. 54 IV. Abundant Physical Evidence ................................................................................ 58 A. Best of My Internship at the Associated Press................................................ 59 B. Photo Essay of European Union Officials ...................................................... 76 C. Detailed Discussion of My Internship at the Associated Press ....................... 82 a. January ............................................................................................. 82 b. February ......................................................................................... 109 c. March ............................................................................................. 156 d. April ............................................................................................... 253 V. Analysis Component ........................................................................................... 278 A. Statement of Topic ........................................................................................ 279 B. Theoretical Framework ................................................................................. 282 C. Research Methodology ................................................................................. 287 D. Review of Literature ..................................................................................... 293 E. Research Findings and Conclusions ............................................................. 307 F. Suggestions for Future Study ........................................................................ 348 G. Bibliography ..................................................................................................351 H. Article for Publication................................................................................... 361 I. Publication Query Letter ............................................................................... 366 VI. Appendices .......................................................................................................... 368 A. Project Proposal (Excluding Literature Review) .......................................... 369 B. List of Interview Questions ........................................................................... 403 C. Transcript of Interview with Wiktor Dabkowski .......................................... 404 D. Transcript of Interview with Olivier Hoslet .................................................. 408 E. Transcript of Interview with Jock Fistick ..................................................... 419 F. Dignitaries Photographed While Covering the EU ....................................... 437 G. Captions for My Best AP Images ................................................................. 441 Islam and the West: How Do Background and Experience Influence How Photojournalists Cover Muslims? I. Introduction Growing up, I’d always dreamed of traveling to Europe. The stories that I read frequently featured heroes from European nations. I took French and loved the idea of speaking a language that was not my native tongue. In 2000, my mother and step-father moved abroad to Saudi Arabia, when my step-father received a promotion at work. Once every year or every two years, they would return to the States and these visits further fueled this dream. Overseas, there were lots of vacation travels throughout Europe and the Middle East; I envied their time in places like Paris, Rome, and London. Beyond their travels, their stories were also filled tales of with life and work in a Muslim state, where one is required to conform to Saudi customs and one must be concerned with the religious police regardless of personal religious preferences. Hearing my step-father speak of working with Saudis and the differences with American practices, I decided I wanted to try living and working abroad for myself. After the events of 9/11, where radical Muslims murdered thousands and bin Laden swore to exterminate the rest of the US population, several people asked about my parents’ safety, since they were living there. Wanting to allay my concerns, I asked my mother whether they were truly secure, being Americans in a Muslim state. Her answer was derisive, almost offended, at the question: “Of course, I’m safe! I feel safer here than I would if I was in the US… The Saudis have always known they had an al Qaeda problem; now they’re doing something about it.” The topics of our conversations 1 changed, moving away from general life in Saudi to displeasure with American tactics and with media coverage in the Middle East. I became increasingly aware of the disjunction and disconnect between what my parents experienced and knew of Muslims and what I saw in the American news. Critically looking at foreign media coverage revealed that disjunction further, exposing the bias and Orientalism that seemed to play out in every publication relating to Muslims and the War in Iraq. I was confronted further with my own biases and ignorance when I took a class on Mohammad and the Quran at The Pennsylvania State University. Professor Jonathan Brockopp asserted that about 10% of Muslims lived in the Middle East; and, while nearly all of my classmates were Muslim, none of them were of Arab or Persian descent. I was astonished to realize that, even though most Muslims live in places like Singapore and Malaysia, when I thought of Muslims, I thought of places like Palestine, Iran, and Iraq, when. And typically, my mental images were third-world images that bordered on the hostile. As part of my class on international educational systems, I examined the European debate over the wearing of the hijab, or veil, and realized that while there is really no difference between the Muslim hijab and a nun’s habit, Westerners revile the Muslim veil but embrace the Christian one. When I was crafting my application for the master’s program at the Missouri School of Journalism, I proposed examining, as a potential research project, several newspapers in the years surrounding 9/11 to discover whether American media was truly biased negatively or if there was an equal amount of positive reporting and sought to discover whether the portrayal of Islam had changed because of 9/11. After I was accepted into the School of Journalism,