A major series blaming Islamophobia for the 2014 Birmingham schools controversy is one-sided and risks opening old wounds

Serial is one of the most downloaded podcasts in the world. Its first season, a true-crime whodunnit that became an instant hit had me hooked on its release eight years ago. So I was excited to tune into its new offering with the New York Times, The Trojan Horse Affair, an eight-part series that promises to tell the real story of the anonymous letter sent to Birmingham city council in 2013, that alleged a plot to take over and run local state schools according to strict Islamist principles.

But this latest series skewers the art of narrative journalism Serial is widely considered to have pioneered. Long-form podcasts have more blockbuster potential than straight-up reporting, but are laced with danger: the temptation to cherry-pick facts in service of a gripping story.

The Trojan Horse Affair presents a one-sided account that minimises child protection concerns, misogyny and homophobia in order to exonerate the podcast’s hero, a man called Tahir Alam. In doing so, it breaches the standards the public have the right to expect of journalists, with cruel consequences for those it uses and abuses along the way.

What happened in Birmingham in 2014 is a story of two parts. Part one involves the anonymous letter that was quickly established as a hoax, and how it got caught up in an intra-Whitehall fight between the then-education and home secretaries, Michael...

Read Full Story: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/20/the-trojan-horse-affair...