Large sections of the British media have learnt nothing from the previous two decades.

The recent Israel and Palestinian conflict has led to a resurgence of anti-Muslim content being printed on a daily basis.

Now, some might sense this has nothing to do with religion and Muslims are always taking on the role of victims. We are after all living in a free society and we have a well-established free press.

Yet, one has to ask the question. Is any other religion or ethnic group treated with such disdain?

We are set to begin a long and protracted period where any support of Palestine will be deemed as support for Hamas. In turn, that will mean you are a terrorist sympathiser. If you happen to be Muslim then you might as well kiss your reputation goodbye.

The argument is that we are within our rights to post baseless articles if we can link them to a cause. That should be all legal right?

You only have to look some of the features that are making the front pages of national newspapers in recent weeks.

A handful of people from a crowd 100,000 strong shouted ‘Jihad’ and we are having a meltdown about it. Moreover, we have government ministers wanting to discuss this as if it was some national crisis.

It all makes for good reading for some but it is bordering on the ridiculous.

In recent years, there had been almost silent admission that quite a lot of the features and articles that were being posted on news sites were based on dubious links. They were only there because they included the words ‘mosque’, ‘Muslim’ and ‘Islam.

There was a sense that maybe some news sites had gone a little too far in attempting to post stories for the sole reason of gaining traction from the semi-racist readers who were more than keen share them.

Quite a number of these fictitious claims were called out, but by then we know was too late and nobody is ever held responsible for the ‘errors’.

That is essentially what we as fellow journalists were part of. We were part of this industry that wanted to find links between people, places, groups and their religion in the hope we could discredit them.

The apparent lull over the past few years was interrupted by comments from Tory politicians who emboldened national newspapers and editors to turn on their ‘favourite’ enemy.

Even better, we were able to quote people from an ethnic minority who could talk about other descendants of immigrants, without ever being accused of being ‘racist’. It is a get out jail card for every writer wanting to share semi-racist content in the guise of ‘reporting’.

Whilst these newspapers and websites would have us think this is journalism, we know full well it borders on hate speech. A story may well appear on a front page for the purpose to instil fear about one particular community.

I am sorry to say but we have had writers and commentators being given airtime and space on respected media organisations to share nasty pieces.

These stories have no other purpose than to encourage people to hate another group or minority. They are posted because there is a realisation that these will be shared more extensively and garner more comments.

Even better other news sites would cover them thus giving us more credibility.

We do of this in the name of free speech and the people at the other end are normally migrants, asylum seekers and Muslims.

Later, when we realise that person had gone a little too far we try to distance ourselves from them. As if to say, ‘Well, we didn’t know she was wanted us bomb poor people with gunships…whatever gave you that impression.”

We are quickly transgressing to the early noughties when journalists and writers would rush to find dubious links between Muslims and extremists.

There was this desperate period when almost any mosque, imam and person with a weird sounding name was fair game.

The purpose is to persuade the reader into thinking another group are a problem and Islam has in some way encroached upon the British way of life.

There are huge issues relating of diversity within journalism and it shows.

One has to question how the decisions are being made and why and will this change.

Would you be prepared to sit through a morning meeting with colleagues to discuss another anti-Muslim piece and then pretend it was ‘journalism?

Probably not.