Backbiting and slander in newspaper reporting

5-5-2008 | IslamWeb

Question:

Is newspaper reporting considered as backbiting, slander or spying? Hadith tells us that to say negatively on someone is backbiting, if it is true, and a slander if it is not true. What am I to do if I'm a newspaper reporter? At times the news I get may not be reliable?

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Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

The Prophetic narration is clear in defining backbiting and slander, and the news that is so, is considered backbiting and slandering. If this is in a newspaper, it may even increase the sin because the news spreads.

A Muslim should seek to be truthful wherever he is; therefore, it is not permissible for a journalist to spread the news which he is not sure is true. The Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, said: “It is enough a lie for a person to convey everything that he hears.” [Muslim]

However, it should be noted that when a person spreads some news he is sure about, and this news is considered as backbiting, but spreading it leads to a benefit such as showing the dissoluteness of a person who takes people’s money without right so that people will be aware of him, then it appears that it is permissible to spread such types of news.

Spying is looking for people’s faults and, like backbiting, is also forbidden or is even graver than it, as stated by some scholars .

Allaah Knows best.