[id2008]

Assalamu alaykum,

I too am considering a career in the media. Namely as a print/web journalist. I am trying to juggle maintaining my Islamic ideals with pursuing a career which has many negatives. Ultimately you can make a difference even if all your colleagues are secular and anti Islamic, you can establish yourself as the in-house expert on Islam, so they will come to you when they need information about Islam, as opposed to going to non-Muslim 'doyens' or 'experts' for information. But you will have to make a decision on how much you're prepared to sacrifice for your career. You will be exposed to ghayr mahrams on a regular basis, you will have to report on un-islamic events (concerts, festivals) and so on.You will have to interview ghayr mahrams, you will have to follow editorial direction on things like being pro-war or anti-war for example, regardless of your personal convictions.

All I can say is think well before you make a decision.
Thanks.

And being the 'in house expert on Islam' is of no use in the media. How will it help when they write an article on someone who did an honour killing? They won't come to you and say 'is this Islam?' because they have NO desire to explain in their article that this is not an Islamic practice- they just want to sell the story.
Will being the expert help when the pro war editor asks you to write an article with a slant that the invasion should occur? No
Will being the in house expert be of any use when they talk about a stoning in Somalia that may or may not have even occurred? When they ask, you'll have to say 'yes, we believe in rajm' and no matter how it is explained to them, they will dislike it and they won't use up their word count in their articles/news reports explaining how we need four witnesses and how difficult it is to establish the adultery even occurred.
In what way does being the in house Islam expert help anyone? These are all questions that need to be asked and lets face it, they won't help us at all.