Veteran BBC Sheffield broadcaster Mushtaq Tufail has been presented with an award in recognition of his services to journalism – and used the occasion to call on British Asians to work in an on the mainstream media to counter negative stereotypes of Muslims and Asian people.
The award was presented to the local broadcaster by Sheffield’s Lord Mayor, Councillor Talib Hussain, who praised Mushtaq’s work in highlighting issues relevant to Sheffield throughout his career. Mushtaq responded by referring to his voluntary work in the community, saying, “I feel it’s paid off with inspiring so many local people to be volunteers on the local community media and few have professionally qualified as journalists.”
Mushtaq recounted how he had joined the BBC as a tea boy, but the kindness of more established journalists had helped him learn and then fashion a career for himself. He spoke of Mohammad Yaseen, who had introduced him to the BBC language department, and expressed his thanks to his colleague Shawkat Hashmi and Shabnam Mahmood for their help and to his other BBC colleagues for their support.
Mushtaq’s first big break came when he was the first to interview Lord Nazir. He has continued to interview interesting and notable people and estimates that so far he has interviewed 6,000 prominent figures.
Mushtaq had been nominated for the award by listeners to Iman FM, and he thanked Mohammad Shabbir Mughal of Iman FM Radio Community for the honour.
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