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British television gave the Edinburgh terror attack on five Muslim men just 160 minutes of coverage. A comparable antisemitic attack in London two months earlier received 1,107 minutes, according to new data from the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), an independent media monitoring project based in London.
The disparity emerges against a backdrop of rising tension this year. Riots broke out in Southampton, triggered by the sentencing of Henry Nowak’s killer, and in Belfast, following the stabbing of Stephen Ogilvie. Both cases drew inflammatory comment from senior political figures, including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and US Vice-President JD Vance.
However the Edinburgh attack on 19 June, in which five men were injured, with three requiring hospital treatment, received much less of a political and media response.
The assailant, Lewis Hawkes, 36, has been charged with five counts of attempted murder linked to terrorism. Police have withheld the names of the victims.
In video footage showing Hawkes being arrested by police officers, he is recorded saying, “I’m protecting the country from these f*cking Muslim b*stards raping our young daughters.”
The Coverage Gap
The comparison covers the Edinburgh attacks and the antisemitic attack in Golders Green in April.
Both datasets compare broadcast minutes across UK television channels and cover a four-day monitoring window for each event – Golders Green (29 April – 2 May 2026) and Edinburgh (20–23 June 2026).
The Golders Green attack was formally declared a terrorist incident by the Metropolitan Police, the same categorisation attached to Hawkes’s charges in Edinburgh. Two men, Shloime Rand, 34, and Moshe Shine, 76, were hospitalised after being attacked on account of being Jewish.
The director of CfMM, Rizwana Hamid, told Byline Times:
“The Centre for Media Monitoring’s analysis of British broadcast and online news coverage found a striking disparity in how two attacks targeting faith communities were reported.
“While the attack in Golders Green rightly received extensive and sustained media attention, the attacks on Muslims in Edinburgh generated significantly less coverage across both broadcast and online news outlets during the same initial reporting period.
“When audiences repeatedly see violence against one community treated as front-page news while similar attacks against another receive comparatively limited attention, it inevitably raises questions about whose experiences are considered newsworthy.”