When people ask me what I do for work, I’m often proud to tell them I’m a journalist. It’s a career I dreamed of pursuing since I was a small child, in the hopes of making a difference and improving the representation of women like me in the media. It’s a job that was once touted as a symbol of truth, a tool for justice and a source of education. So why are so many other Muslim women considering leaving the journalism industry?

Being a journalist is like no other job. There’s rarely such a thing as a 9-to-5 with the never-ending news cycle, print media has been on the decline for many years, and low wages are unfortunately normalised. Many journalists are aware of this when entering the industry, but are still enticed by the fast-paced nature, the ability to shape the news agenda and the thrill of having no two days being the same.

Despite this, a powerful report by media watchdog Centre for Media Monitoring revealed that 60 per cent of Muslim women working in the media have considered leaving the industry altogether. Largely, this isn’t down to pay or career progression – it exposes a troubling reality of systemic discrimination, unfair representation, mental health impacts and toxic workplace culture in British media.

The study reveals that 92 per cent of Muslim women working in the media feel negative views about Islam and Muslims are embedded within organisations, and 72 per cent have experienced direct discrimination linked to their identity. These feelings of dissatisfaction have also been exacerbated following mainstream coverage about Palestine, as 85 per cent have questioned their future in the industry following reporting around October 7th and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

“Just mentioning Palestine can get a piece killed,” says journalist Nadeine Asbali in the report. “It has had a detrimental impact on Muslims working in the industry because we’re perceived as talking about Palestine too much or bringing it into everything. But to us, it does impact everything.”

Another anonymous respondent adds, “I’ve never been so ashamed to call myself a journalist and say I work in what is the legacy media, through the bosses, I feel the coverage is straight out of an Israeli army playbook and complicit in genocide.”

This sentiment is particularly important, given the state of journalism in the region currently. At least 270 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since the war worsened, with the latest being five Al-Jazeera staff members, including 28-year-old reporter Anas al-Sharif, killed on Sunday, 10th August 2025, in a reportedly deliberate Israeli attack on a media tent. At a crucial time when being a journalist can be a death sentence in Gaza, Western journalists continue to stay silent and perpetuate biases against Palestinians. It feels like we’re in a constant state of cognitive dissonance that has left me and many others feeling disillusioned.

The CfMM report was authored by Samia Rahman, a scholar, writer and journalist who focuses on Muslim women and patriarchy. Her latest research with CfMM, titled ‘Muslim Women in the Media: Breaking Barriers, Bearing the Burden,’ is also set to expose a harsh reality.

“There has been a great deal of discussion around inclusivity and the importance of encouraging Muslim women and other marginalised or under-represented communities to enter the media,” she tells me. “But the question remains to what extent increased representation leads to an increased ability to influence the ways in which news about these communities is framed, and is more authentic.”

Samia suggested that representation matters, but not if it is purely performative. “If Muslim women entering the media still don’t have the power to influence the narrative around Muslims, then the issue is not representation, it is about the media industry as a system not creating space for alternative voices,” she continues.

Samia calls for more meaningful power to be given to Muslim women working in the media to retain staff and better the industry as a whole. “There needs to be a move away from tokenistic visibility, towards Muslim women recruited into roles with meaningful editorial power,” she says, a feeling echoed by journalist, author & screenwriter, Yasmin Abdel-Mageid, who shares, “One person is not going to be able to create the radical transformation that is needed. Everyone of us likes to come in and think we will be the person that changes everything, but that’s not how systems work.” And they’re right.

Mehreen Khan, now the Economics Editor at The Times, saw the need for real transformation in newsrooms back in 2020, when her opinion piece in the Financial Times critiquing the French government’s treatment of Muslims triggered outrage at the highest levels of the French state. FT pulled the piece, issued no defence, and left Khan to face the storm alone. “Representation isn’t enough,” she insists. “The real issue is retention. Getting Muslim journalists into middle management, into decision-making roles.” For Khan, meaningful change comes with seeing Muslims in all fields of journalism: editing sports, economics, and on foreign desks. Not just the ‘Muslim beat.’ “That’s when we’ll have power,” she says.

Rizwana Hamid, journalist, filmmaker and director, observes, “Power is never won through people who are in power giving it to you. It’s won through those who don’t have it, pushing for it.”

From journalism to fashion and tech, Muslim women are visible in their industries now more than ever, with diverse representation growing, but when such industries fail to condemn the genocide in Gaza, what purpose does such representation truly serve apart from performativity?

As a journalist, our job is to speak the truth even when it is unpopular, but with silencing from higher-ups and a lack of career progression for minorities in the industry, that job feels harder and harder to do. But the importance of using your platform, as a journalist or not, is unparalleled. Despite the difficulties of being a Muslim woman in the media right now, many still have faith in utilising their voices collectively to create change and continue to condemn the atrocities happening to colleagues in Gaza and beyond. 

As said by the late Anas al-Sharif in a message posted on X after his death, “If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice… Allah knows I gave every effort and all my strength to be a support and a voice for my people.” 

The power of journalism is more important now than ever and can be one of the only tools in spreading awareness for the ongoing genocide in Gaza and atrocities in other regions. But, power has to be given to Muslim women in the media for their voices to be truly heard and valued – representation is no longer enough.