Further, articles about Muslims that have nothing to do with terrorism are substantially more negative than articles about Catholics, Jews or Hindus. Roughly speaking, the more negative words in an article, the more negative we rate the article, and vice versa. As expected, we find that articles that contain terrorism and extremism words are more negative than articles that do not. In addition to coverage about terrorism and extremism, articles about Muslims that mention a foreign location are also associated with negative coverage. Systematic, long-term negative coverage of Muslims is likely to influence newspaper readers’ beliefs and policy preferences.

Source: Washington Post December 20, 2018 12:00 UTC