Sometimes the most important words in an article are the ones before the paywall. The original piece from Gript begins with a simple but sharp observation about how the Irish Daily Mirror reported the sentencing of Muhammad Iqbal. Iqbal, a Pakistani doctor, had just been found guilty of sexual assault in a Newcastle court. The Mirror, which the writer is careful to acknowledge is “generally much better in regard to crime reporting,” still chose to introduce him as a “Pakistani doctor.” That phrase might seem neutral at first glance. But in the context of a sexual assault conviction, it is anything but neutral. It invites readers to see the crime through the lens of nationality and profession rather than through the actions themselves. It shifts the frame from “a man who did something terrible” to “a man from somewhere else who did something terrible.” And in doing so, it does a quiet disservice to the truth. Imagine the scene in that Newcastle courtroom. A woman had to relive a traumatic experience in front of strangers. A jury listened, weighed evidence, and reached a verdict. A judge then passed a sentence. This was a moment of accountability, a moment when society said, through its legal system, that sexual violence is unacceptable. But when the news report leads with “Pakistani doctor,” the moment becomes something else. It becomes a story about identity. The victim is pushed to the background. The trust that was broken is pushed to the background. The pattern of power and abuse is pushed to the background. What remains is a label. Labels are comfortable because they let us categorise people quickly. But human beings are not categories. A doctor is also a person. A Pakistani man is also a person. A survivor is also a person. The best journalism remembers all of that.
Think about the victim for a moment. She is the person we rarely see in the headlines. Her name is not in the article. Her face is not on the page. But she is the reason this case exists. She survived an assault. She found the courage to report it. She went through the exhausting, often re-traumatising process of giving evidence. She watched as the defence tried to undermine her credibility. She waited, sometimes for years, for the moment when a judge would finally say the word “guilty.” And when that moment came, she may have felt relief, or anger, or exhaustion, or all three. Then she opened a newspaper and saw the man who hurt her described first and foremost as a “Pakistani doctor.” Why does that matter? Because it tells her that the media is not thinking about her. It is thinking about audiences and clicks and tribalism. It is thinking about how to make the story feel exotic or threatening. It is not thinking about the person who has to live with the aftermath. The humanising truth is that sexual assault is never about one moment. It is about the days and nights that follow, the fear, the shame, the difficulty trusting people, the small triggers that bring it all back. The victim did not ask to become a footnote in a debate about immigration. She did not ask to become a prop in a culture war. She asked for justice, and she got it. But the reporting of that justice should be for her, not for the algorithm. When the Irish Daily Mirror framed Muhammad Iqbal as a “Pakistani doctor,” it made his origins the main event. That is a betrayal of the victim’s story. It also says something uncomfortable about how we view crime. We seem to believe that some criminals are individuals, while others are representatives of their communities. The truth is simpler and sadder: a person who commits sexual assault is just that, a person who committed sexual assault. Their background may explain some things, but it never excuses. And it should never be used to make a headline more dramatic.
The original author’s aside—“who, in fairness, are generally much better in regard to crime reporting”—is important. It shows that the critique is not a blanket condemnation. It is a plea for consistency. The Irish Daily Mirror has apparently done good work before. It has covered crime with sensitivity and nuance. It has understood that victims deserve dignity. That makes this particular lapse more frustrating, not less. Because it proves that the paper knows better. It can do better. And yet, in this instance, the old habits of tabloid journalism crept back in. The desire to make a story feel urgent and clickable overwhelmed the responsibility to be fair. This happens in newsrooms every day, all over the world. A journalist writes a headline. An editor chooses a word. No one stops to ask: is this relevant? Does it help the reader understand? Does it harm an innocent community? The phrase “Pakistani doctor” might have been added with no ill intent. But intent is not the same as impact. Impact matters. In a multicultural society, words can travel fast and land hard. When a newspaper repeatedly identifies criminals by their ethnic or national background, it creates a mental map. Readers begin to associate that background with criminality. They begin to see entire communities as dangerous. This is not speculation; it is a well-documented pattern. It is why media guidelines in many countries urge journalists to avoid mentioning race or nationality unless it is genuinely relevant. Relevant might mean that the police are looking for a suspect and need help from the public. Relevant might mean that the crime is specifically about racial hatred. But in a case of sexual assault by a doctor, nationality is simply not part of the story. The crime would be exactly the same if the man had been Irish, British, Polish, or Nigerian. The harm done to the victim would be exactly the same. The sentence would be exactly the same. So why mention it? The only honest answer is that it makes the story more sensational. And that is not good enough.
Then comes the awkward part of the original content: the paywall. After a paragraph that has already made you think, the page stops and tells you that this is premium content. To read more, you need to subscribe to Gript. You can get unlimited access, full archives, and an ad-free experience. There is even a Facebook pixel tracking your visit, as if to remind you that nothing on the internet is truly free. It is easy to feel frustrated by this. You were just getting interested. The writer raised a question, and then, like a friend leaving in the middle of a conversation, vanished. But if we pause, we can understand the economics behind the wall. Independent media outlets are struggling. Advertising revenue is dominated by Google and Facebook. Social media algorithms reward outrage, not nuance. Investigative journalism, fact-checking, editing, design, and distribution all cost money. If a publication like Gript wants to survive without billionaire owners or state subsidies, it has to ask its readers to pay. A paywall is not an act of greed. It is an act of survival. Behind that paywall, there is a real person. A journalist who sat down to write. A writer who chose those words carefully. An editor who decided that this story deserved space. A developer who built the subscription system. A support team that answers emails from confused readers. It is easy to see “premium content” and think “corporate,” but in truth it is often just a small team trying to keep the lights on. By subscribing, you are not buying a product; you are supporting a mission. You are saying that careful, ethical journalism matters to you. You are also saying that you understand the trade-off: if you want quality, you have to contribute. At the same time, it is worth acknowledging the limitations of paywalls. They mean that important conversations happen in echo chambers. The people who most need to read a critique about media bias might be the ones who cannot or will not pay. That is a real problem. But it is not a problem with a simple answer. For now, the paywall remains a necessary compromise.
Beyond the paywall, there is a larger question that the article’s opening line raises: what do we want from our news? We want to be informed, yes. But we also want to feel something. We want stories that connect us to other human beings. That is why crime reporting can be so powerful—and so dangerous. It deals with the most extreme moments of human behaviour. It asks us to look at pain, fear, and justice. It can make us feel sympathy for victims and outrage at offenders. But it can also be used to divide us. When the media tells us “one of them” did something terrible, it feeds a narrative of us versus them. When it says “one of us” did something terrible, it forces us to confront uncomfortable truths about our own society. That is why the choice of words matters so much. It is not just about being polite. It is about whether we understand crime as a human problem or as a tribal one. In this case, Muhammad Iqbal is a Pakistani doctor. Those are facts. But they are only two facts among many. He is also a man who studied medicine, who earned a position of trust, and who then violated that trust in the worst way. The full truth is more complicated than a headline. A person can be educated and abusive. A person can be professional and predatory. A person can belong to one culture and still be shaped by many influences. Reducing him to “Pakistani doctor” suggests that his culture explains his crime. That is a lazy and dangerous conclusion. It lets the rest of us off the hook. It says: this is not a problem that exists everywhere; it is a problem that comes from outside. But sexual assault exists in every country, every community, every social class. The only way to address it is to look at the systems and beliefs that enable it—not to use it as a reason to stigmatise a whole nation. If we truly want to prevent future assaults, we need honest, nuanced conversation. That conversation cannot happen if our media is busy selling fear.
Ultimately, the brief glimpse of the Gript article is a reminder of the stories behind every headline. We may never know what the rest of that piece argued, unless we choose to subscribe. But perhaps we do not need to know. The opening line has already done its work. It has asked us to pause. It has asked us to notice the way language shapes perception. It has asked us to think about the woman in the courtroom, the man being sentenced, the newspaper that chose a particular phrase, and the audience that read it. That is the power of good journalism: not to tell us what to think, but to make us think. And it is the power of good readers too. We can choose to be more than passive consumers of headlines. We can choose to read critically, to question the words used, to ask who benefits from a particular framing. We can choose to support outlets that strive for fairness, even when they fall short. We can also hold them accountable when they do. Humanising content does not mean softening the truth. Muhammad Iqbal was convicted of sexual assault. That is a serious crime with a lasting impact on the victim. The human response to that should be concern for the victim and confidence in the justice system. But the human response to the reporting should be a commitment to fairness. A Pakistani doctor is a human being. His victim is a human being. The readers are human beings. The journalists are human beings. We all have biases, blind spots, and moments of carelessness. The best we can do is recognise them and try to do better. The next time you read a crime story, ask yourself: what information is missing? Why was this detail included? How would I feel if I were the victim? How would I feel if I were an innocent member of the community being named? Those questions will not always have easy answers. But asking them is the beginning of a more humane media. And in a world that often feels loud and cruel, a little more humanity is exactly what we need. If you value that, perhaps it is worth paying for—or at least worth thinking about.