- CfMM’s analysis of nearly 4,000 Spectator articles published between 2018 and 2025 found 57.4% were “biased” or “very biased” against Muslims.
- The report identified recurring patterns of subjective reporting, including the delegitimisation of Islamophobia and collective attribution, concluding that the magazine’s coverage was consistently and disproportionately negative over the eight year period.
The Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) has published detailed research into the Britain’s oldest right-wing magazine’s coverage of Muslims and Islam between January 2018 and December 2025, analysing almost 4,000 articles.
The study found that 57.4 per cent of articles, more than 2,100 pieces, were rated “biased” or “very biased” against Muslims. Only a small proportion were found to be “meeting standards of balanced and fair representation”. According to CfMM, it is the most extensive independent analysis ever conducted of a single British publication’s reporting on Muslim communities.
The centre said the report distinguishes legitimate scrutiny of Islam and Muslims from coverage that misrepresents, distorts or generalises. Only the latter is classified as bias. Each article was assessed against five predefined editorial indicators. An article was classified as biased only if it breached at least two of these criteria, while the strongest classifications required four or five breaches. Former Conservative minister Michael Gove became the magazine’s editor in October 2024.
The report identifies a sustained pattern of bias and anti-Muslim rhetoric, framing Muslims as a threat to Britain. It concludes that while not every Spectator article is problematic, the magazine’s coverage during the study period was disproportionately negative.
Rizwana Hamid, director of the Centre for Media Monitoring, said: “The cumulative effect of this coverage is the construction of Muslims as an exceptional population whose presence is associated with threat, conflict and instability.
“This is not the product of individual editorial failures – it is a structural pattern embedded over eight years and beyond.”
The study found that almost 73 per cent of articles covering Islamophobia were “biased” or “very biased”. It also found that almost 65 per cent of articles about antisemitism were “biased” or “very biased” against Muslims.
Researchers identified five recurring mechanisms of bias. One was the delegitimisation of Islamophobia, where concern about anti-Muslim prejudice is routinely framed as censorship or bad faith.
Other mechanisms included collective attribution, where the actions or beliefs of a minority within Muslim communities are attributed to Muslims as a whole, and theological misrepresentation, where Islamic concepts and texts are presented through their most hostile interpretations without engaging with mainstream scholarship.
The report also found evidence of asymmetric attribution, where religious identity is emphasised when Muslims are perpetrators but omitted when they are victims. It also identified the publication of contested or unsubstantiated claims about Islam without challenge.
Peter Oborne, former political editor of The Spectator, said: “Today, as it approaches the 200th anniversary of its foundation by Robert Rintoul, The Spectator has become one of the most influential British media apologists for bigotry, hatred and racism: an upmarket version of GB News.”
The findings build on CfMM’s landmark 2025 State of the Media report, which identified The Spectator as the UK’s most proportionally biased major news outlet, with more than one in four articles classified as “Very Biased.”
