The anything-but-Islam pundits
strike out. Not long after Major Nidal Malik Hasan had pulled the trigger for the last time at Ft. Hood, the
mainstream media began assembling their anything-but-Islam narratives. A rationale was needed, something that could
plausibly be claimed to motivate a killing spree. A desperate rush to explain his behavior in politically palatable
terms naturally resulted in desperate stories in which preposterous motivations, contrary to the known facts, were posited.
Jihad at Fort Hood.
According to NPR, "the motive behind the shootings was not immediately clear, officials said." The Washington
Post agreed: "The motive remains unclear, although some sources reported the suspect is opposed to U.S.
involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq and upset about an imminent deployment." The Huffington Post spun
faster, asserting that "there is no concrete reporting as to whether Nidal Malik Hasan was in fact a Muslim
or an Arab." Yet there was, and what's more, Major Hasan's motive was perfectly clear — but
it was one that the forces of political correctness and the Islamic advocacy groups in the United States
have been working for years to obscure.
Reaction to the Fort Hood shootings:
Memo to ABC:
There's a Reason He's Not Called Smith. Of course, what else is predictable is how the media
is covering it. In the words of an NPR report: "we know he took his faith seriously, but we can't
say for sure that was a factor." Right. That's exactly what they say about anyone who bombs
an abortion clinic, as we know.
More commentary about Fort Hood.
Major Malik Hassan, after being transferred from Walter Reed Hospital to Fort Hood decided to celebrate his
promotion and transfer by shouting "God is great" in Arabic while gunning down a dozen of his fellow
soldiers. The mainstream media is falling all over itself today in an attempt to somehow paint this
domestic Islamic terrorist as the victim rather than the perpetrator. Muslim-friendly to the point of
being Muslim-centric, the news networks are even trying to do their reporting without mentioning the
killer's name.
Muslim Suffers Bruised Ego in Fort Hood Tragedy.
President Obama honored the victims by immediately warning Americans not to "jump to conclusions" —
namely, the obvious conclusion that the attack was an act of Islamic terrorism. As conclusions go, it
wasn't much of a jump. But the mainstream media waited for no information — indeed actively
avoided learning any information — before leaping to the far less obvious conclusion that the
suspect's mass murder was set off by "stress."
Dobbs
Compares President's Post-Cambridge to Post-Fort Hood Remarks. Some of the mainstream media
intelligentsia following the Fort Hood, Texas massacre have cautioned people to reserve judgment about the
suspect Major Nidal Malik Hasan and have bypassed many key details in order to live up to what could be
construed as a politically correct standard. CNN's Lou Dobbs isn't one of them.
Fort Hood Horror.
Horror spread quickly across America as the story unfolded: An Army psychiatrist went on a shooting
rampage at Fort Hood in Texas, killing 13 and wounding 30. But as more information emerged, clearly
pointing to an act of terrorism, many in the "news" media simply chose not to report news.
They Kill Us and We're the Ones to Blame.
By ignoring the fact that 66 percent of the deliberate attacks within the US military by other soldiers,
have involved Muslims — the media is engaging in blatant deceptiveness. Unless Muslims
somehow suffer from a form of PTSD more severe than non-Muslim soldiers, or unless Muslims comprise
66 percent of the US military — both false statements, it is obvious that the question of
Islamic beliefs should be investigated as central to these acts of violence.
ABC, CBS, NBC: Obama's
Lapdogs. Ever since Candidate Obama set foot on the national scene, the "mainstream" media
have been eating out of his hand. And regrettably, today those same news stations still are. This
has been made abundantly clear through their coverage of the recent terror attack on Fort Hood.
Mainstream
Misreporting: Ft. Hood Shooter's Motives. "We don't know all the answers yet, and
I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts," said President Obama with
regards to Nidal Malik Hasan's motives in murdering thirteen people last week. So maybe President
Obama and his press secretary won't acknowledge that Nidal Malik Hasan is a terrorist, but that is no excuse
for members of the mainstream media who are ignoring this facet of the recent Fort Hood shooting.
Political
Correctness, Ft. Hood, and Hollywood. Almost before the echo of gunfire from the massacre at Ft. Hood had
faded, the news media launched a pre-emptive rationalization for the slaughter committed by Muslim traitor Nidal Malik
Hasan. To divert attention from the shooter's inconvenient name, the talking heads began speculating sympathetically
about the fragile mental state of poor frazzled Hasan, who had never seen combat but nonetheless must have "snapped."
More
about the incident at Fort Hood.
CAIR coverage ignores terror ties.
Is the Council on American-Islamic Relations merely a civil rights organization exercising its constitutional right to
lobby on Capitol Hill like hundreds of other non-profit organizations? That's the way Politico and other
mainstream news outlets have portrayed CAIR — despite the FBI's decision this year to cut off
ties to the Muslim group after its designation by the Department of Justice as an "unindicted
co-conspirator" in the largest terrorist-finance case in U.S. history.
Freedom
of Religion: A Precious American Right, an Islamic Capital Crime. Given the anti-Christian views of many
Muslims and of all the Western book-and-column writing atheists and secularists, I wonder if Rifqa Bary, the teenage convert
from Islam to Christianity, is not respected as a hero who is fighting for her freedom of religion but seen, rather, as
someone who has taken yet another reactionary path. Perhaps if Rifqa had launched a lawsuit for the right to wear
hijab or a burqa in Ohio she might immediately have gotten mainstream media sympathy.
Did
someone mention Rifqa Bary?
News
Media Blackout: Iraqi Muslims Slaughtering Christians. Either intentionally or unintentionally, United States
news media outlets are ignoring the violence perpetrated by Muslims against Christians in Iraq. While some believe
this stems from the fact that reporters have moved on to stories other than US operations in Iraq, others believe this
lack of coverage has more to do with the anti-Christian bias that exists within the media.
'Apostate' Girl's
Father: The Unreported Story. Rifqa's parents, Mohamad and Aysha Bary, signed affidavits
declaring themselves indigent. That's why the Florida court appointed a lawyer for the father and a
lawyer for the mother. Both their lawyers are being paid by the taxpayers of Florida. ... Yet in a Dunn
and Bradstreet report filed by Mohammad Bary himself for his business, Bary Gems, he states his
business does $237,561 per annum. The wife, Aysha Bary, makes high-end bridal gowns (that income may be
off the books, but she works every day).
Iran Linked to
International Terror; Media Snoozes. Ever since the failure to find WMDs in Iraq, the American
public and the media have demanded a nearly unreachable standard of proof before indicting a foreign
government. When someone calls Iran a state sponsor of terrorism, proof that they are "linked"
to al-Qaeda is demanded. Once al-Qaeda's refuge in Iran is offered as a counterpoint, proof that the
regime knows of their presence and that the group isn't merely working with "rogue elements" of the
government, but the government as a whole, is required. ... In the world of intelligence, it is extremely
rare to come by the "smoking gun" now commonly requested.
Armed and
Extreme, but Buried in Briefs. The Tiller assassination garnered three stories, an editorial and a column
(mine) over the following two days, and a week later a front-page story, whereas The Chronicle ran two national briefs
about the military-recruiter attack, on Page A5 one day, and Page A6 the next. Other media underplayed the
domestic terrorist attack as well. For me, the reason is pretty obvious: Stories that reinforce journalists'
political beliefs rate the front page or top of their newscasts; stories that do not are not considered big news.
Media Takes Whitewashing
of Islam to a Whole New Level. [There is] a blog on the Post/Newsweek website by top-tier Islam apologist
John Esposito. Esposito is the founding director of something called the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for
Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University — which means that the Saudi royal family pays his
salary. Which, in turn, means that a man on the payroll of the world's most oppressive Islamic regime is engaged
by the Washington Post and Newsweek to provide their readers with objective facts about Islam. This
perverse state of affairs is, alas, par for the course in today's mainstream media.
Bidding
farewell to the country's 'war on terror'. The liberal media are now actively downplaying Muslim terrorism,
and that was vividly demonstrated last week when two soldiers were shot by an American-Muslim in Arkansas. One
of them, 24-year-old Private William Long, was killed. There is no doubt the cold-blooded murder of Pvt. Long
by Carlos Bledsoe, aka Abdulhakim Muhammad, was a shocking story. But if you were watching Katie Couric on the
"CBS Evening News," you missed it, as Couric did not mention the murder. On ABC, Charles Gibson ignored the
story as well. On NBC, Brian Williams spent less than two minutes on the situation.
Oh, and Incidentally ... You
gotta' love the New York Times and its hyper-politically correct sensitivities about revealing the ethnic or religious
backgrounds of criminal suspects. Thus we have today's front-pager: "4 Accused of Bombing Plot at
Bronx Synagogues." Who were these four, I wondered?
The
Media, Islam & Political Correctness. The New York Times has been assailed by conservative critics such as
Dallas Morning News columnist and blogger Rod Dreher for downplaying a troubling aspect of the case: all the
suspects are Muslims. (They had converted to Islam while in prison for drug offenses, theft and other crimes.)
The first Times report on May 20 mentioned this fact only in passing — despite a statement by New York
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly at a press conference that the four had talked frankly about wanting
to "commit jihad."
Homegrown
Islamic Jihad in the Bronx. Four African-American converts to Islam, all of whom converted to Islam
in prison, have been arrested by the FBI just as they attempted to bomb two Riverdale synagogues, (the Riverdale
Jewish Center and the Riverdale Temple), in the Bronx and a New York National Guard air base in Newburgh, New York
where they lived and attended a mosque. Why do I begin by clearly stating the race and religion of the
terrorists? Because the liberal mainstream media refuses to do so, or buries such facts on its back pages.
Show Me the Mullah. I am
struck by the lack of coverage in the media of the obvious beneficiary of the rise in Somali piracy. Let's just
ask the question; who stands to gain from this phenomenon? It's pretty simple really. The piracy in the
northern Indian Ocean raises large sums of money for fundamentalist Mullahs and puts a big hurt on Suez Canal traffic.
This piracy is a de facto extension of the strategy behind the assassination of Anwar Sadat and busloads of foreign
tourists.
Were
Shooters Unidentified in Press Because They Were Muslim? We have a shooting incident in Minnesota
perpetrated by three Muslim Somali immigrants but for some reason almost every single media report about the
incident omits the names of the shooters, names of obvious North African or ethnic origin. So, the
question is, did the Old Media in Minnesota purposefully leave the names unreported so that they could cover
up the fact that the criminals were Somali immigrants? And, if so, why would they do this?
The words "islam" and "Muslim" are conspicuously
absent from this story:
FBI raids three Minneapolis money-transfer shops. Federal
agents raided three Minneapolis money transfer businesses that mainly serve the Somali community Wednesday [4/8/2009],
seeking records of financial transactions to several African and Middle East countries. E.K. Wilson, a special
agent for the FBI in Minneapolis, confirmed that agents searched the businesses on the city's south side to track money
transactions, but wouldn't disclose any further details.
Somali Pirates Tied to
Jihad. The latest crisis off the coast of Africa where Somali pirates hijacked a US flag ship is not
something that suddenly materialized out of thin air.
The darkest brand of 'honour'. When an
Ethiopian man in Alexandria, Va., killed his wife, the report in last week's Alexandria Gazette Packet tiptoed nervously
around his motive. It said that cultural issues were involved and that he had ordered her not to interact with
co-workers. In case the point still wasn't clear, the reporter attempted to explain: "In Ethiopia, women
have more defined roles." That's a cowardly way of saying that women automatically obey their husbands in Ethiopia
but sometimes don't in America. The deliberate ambiguity would be comic if it were not attached to a tragedy.
Not Merely Wrong, but Unprofessional.
Every time you think the New York Times cannot sink any lower, you open the paper and find something else that
leaves you wondering about the lack of editorial judgment at the Grey Lady. Today's Op-Ed page is, on the
surface, clear evidence of the paper's editorial agenda with regard to the Islamist regime in Iran. Of the
three pieces on the page, two are devoted to the cause of appeasing Iran.
The Media Sees No
Evil. Consider media coverage of last November's Mumbai terrorist attacks, which left more
than 170 dead. While the media were quick to link the group responsible, Lashkar-e-Taiba, to
the territorial battle over the Kashmir valley, they were largely silent when it came to the group's main
objectives: to establish an Islamic state in South Asia and annihilate all "enemies of Islam,"
including Hindus and Jews.
Muslim misperceptions: It
seems that world's media agrees with the majority of the world's Muslims that the 900 killed by the Israelis in Gaza
are more worthy of outrage that than the two hundred thousand African Muslims killed by Arabs in Darfur. As a
result, Hamas is encouraged to attract Israeli fire towards civilian targets, by firing weapons from schools and homes,
correctly believing that their tactics will not be criticised.
Is Israel
Doomed? Israel's enemies assert that its destruction is inevitable, and those who would destroy her are
cheered on by many in the West. At the same time, Western mainstream media, particularly in Europe but also major
media outlets in America, do puff pieces on Israel's genocidal adversaries, slant the news to conform to her enemies'
propaganda, and support the delegimitization of the Jewish state.
Gaza and
The One-World Media's Propaganda. As the Israelis continue their push into Gaza; as they
continue an offensive military campaign against Hamas, born of the need to protect Israeli civilians from
rockets fired by Hamas jihadis, it is almost impossible to gather accurate information regarding the
conflict, at least not from the mainstream media.
CNN busted running
phony Gaza propaganda, doesn't fess up. Down the memory hole goes fake video run by CNN to tug
on viewers' heartstrings, following its debunking by clear-headed observers. The "most trusted name in
news" lacks the integrity to fess up for channeling Palestinian propaganda, though.
The Media Collude in
Terrorist Crimes against Humanity. The key is not the terrorists. They are stuck in their
ways. The real key is the international media — who are hardly neutral observers as
they like to pretend. The international leftist media are essential players in this melodrama.
LA Times gives
column space to deported Hamas terrorist. How low can a newspaper go? The LA Times edges closer
to Der Stürmer territory, giving precious op-ed space to Hamas terrorist Mousa Abu Marzook, deported
from the US in 1997.
The Disgrace of "The
Nation": As Israel fights a life and death battle with Hamas terrorists, the American Left is doing its part
to come to the aid of Hamas. Spearheading this effort is The Nation magazine.
The So-called International
Community. The so-called international community has a script already prepared for any news from the Middle
East. In this script, there is only Israeli violence, Israeli repression, Israeli guilt.
The
Mumbai Massacre: Caused by the Jews. In a bout of journalistic malpractice, The Washington
Post ran a story Tuesday declaring that officials had uncovered the true motivations of the Mumbai
terrorists: 400 years of persecution by the West and the existence of Jews, especially in Israel.
The Case
of the Missing Honor Killing: I'm glad that America's Most Wanted chose to dramatize the honor
killing of Sarah and Amina Said in Dallas on Jan 1, 2008 by their father Yaser Abdul Said, who has been
missing ever since. I hope the program helps aid in his capture. I applaud on-camera narrator John
Walsh, who has turned his own grief at the loss of his child into something positive for so many others.
However, the dramatization was oddly, perhaps even purposefully misleading.
The Media's Hypocritical Obsession with Madoff's Faith. As I've
previously noted, the Times goes out of its way to describe terrorists who are ethnic Arab Muslims and south Asian Muslims
as "gunmen," "attackers," "fighters," (never as terrorists), and they rarely use the word "Arab" or "Muslim" to characterize
the perpetrators of a deadly rogue action. However, the paper of record will use the word "Muslim" to describe an
aggrieved victim who has alleged "Islamophobia" or "racism."
Were There Muslims in
Mumbai? Let's see: In the past 30 years, the overwhelming majority of acts of terrorism were
committed by Muslims. Most terrorist groups have names like jihad-this and Islamic-that. Terrorists regularly
quote the Koran's kill-the-infidels verses. ("O True Believers, when you encounter the unbeliever, strike off
their heads!") Al-Qaeda and company tell us that their goal is to advance the global jihad. Those inciting
inter-religious violence have titles like sheikh, imam and mullah. But linking Islam to terrorism is "misleading"?
There's Nothing To Explain. The
Left's rush to explain the Mumbai attack in terms of Western antagonism, and not in terms of the doctrine of jihad, feels
like simple collusion with monsters. The musings of the average American accountant or traffic cop or lawyer are one
thing, but are we really to believe the editors of Newsweek and Time suffer from "naiveté" in their understanding of
global frictions.
Whose side are they on?
We thought we were safe... then CNN stepped in! A South
Wales couple caught in the Mumbai terror attacks claimed last night that CNN put their lives at risk by
broadcasting where they were. Lynne and Kenneth Shaw, of Penarth, warned that terrorists were listening
in to the media to pinpoint Western victims. Mrs Shaw claimed the American cable TV channel had
broadcast details of where they were at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel.
Roars
About Russia, Bare Whispers About Islam. What American presidential candidate would ever explain
the Islamic push, financial and otherwise, in the West for mosque construction, Islamic schools (madrassas),
campus Islamic studies (apologetics) departments, Sharia law-inspired legal challenges, lobbying for
Sharia-compliant banking and the like as a matter of Islamic imperialism?
PBS dropped 'Islam vs. Islamists'
on political grounds. The producer of a tax-financed documentary on Islamic extremism claims his
film has been dropped for political reasons from a television series that airs next week on more
than 300 PBS stations nationwide.
Deal lets PBS stations air Islam
film. A documentary billed as "the film PBS doesn't want you to see" will at long last get a
national audience. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB)
announced a joint agreement yesterday to make "Islam vs. Islamists" available to the 354 Public Broadcasting
Service member stations across the nation as a "stand-alone" TV program, with a little extra embellishment.
Nation of
Islam Allowed to Review PBS Documentary on Moderate Muslims. A conflict of interest involving
the radical Nation of Islam and the Washington, D.C., affiliate of the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) is an
example of unethical journalism that benefits extremist Muslims, according to a national security expert and
a Hollywood filmmaker.
New 'Useful Idiots'? For years, the Soviet Union
benefited from those Vladimir Lenin is said to have dubbed "the useful idiots of the West" — reporters,
scholars, leftists, and assorted romantics who said the Soviet system of totalitarianism was not so
bad. Leading its own charm offensive, another evil empire, the Muslim Brotherhood, has assembled
its own enablers among the West's august institutions during the last few years.
This is what passes for journalism these days:
ABC
Fakes Muslim Prejudice, Unsurprisingly Finds 'Islamophobia' in America. Apparently to prove that
the US is filled with Muslim hating yahoos, ABC went on the hunt to find "Islamophobia" in America and the
result is "Witness to Discrimination: What Would You Do?" Since they didn't really know where to
find any, ABC News decided to create their own prejudice against Muslims by hiring an actress to put on Muslim
dress and get "confronted" by a Muslim hating coffee store server — also an actor hired by ABC.
CAIR's
Spin Guide: As part of its ongoing campaign to make sure you learn about Islam only what it wants
you to learn, the notorious Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has issued a new media
guide — available only to "media professionals" — that purports to "educate the media
and disabuse journalists of misinformation" about Islam.
Look Forward to Anger. Our media regularly make
the assumption that the book burners and fanatics really do represent the majority, and that assumption has
by no means been tested. (If it is ever tested, and it turns out to be true, then can we hear a
bit less about how one of the world's largest religions mustn't be confused with its lunatic fringe?)
Defining Terror Down:
Apparently the media elite spent too much time on the phone with CAIR apologists to bother reading the FBI
affidavit, which makes it clear they were motivated simply by Islamic jihad (as if that were anything new).
It records the men saying they were willing to die killing infidels in the name of Allah. One asks who'll
take care of his family. Not to worry, another responds, "Allah will take care of your wife and kids."
They watched speeches by Osama bin Laden calling for jihad, videos of jihadi attacks, and videotaped messages
from two of the 9/11 "martyrs." Yet the media would have none of it.
A hate crime with no hater. In an AP
story on Naveed Haq, "Man charged in Seattle shooting rampage", Gene Johnson of AP leaves out Haq's declaration,
"I'm a Muslim American, I'm angry with Israel." … This omission makes his grievance seem purely
political — one that any self-respecting Leftist would share. This is compounded by the
fact that Johnson also neglects to mention that Haq is Pakistani, thereby leading the reader to the impression
that when he says "our people," he must be Palestinian or Lebanese. After all, he couldn't possibly
mean "Muslim people," could he?
French Police Faulted in Youths'
Deaths. An internal police review of the 2005 electrocutions of two teenagers that triggered
weeks of rioting in poor French neighborhoods faulted police officers for their handling of the case, a
lawyer for the victims' families said Thursday [12/7/2006].
Editor's Note:
Notice that the word "Muslim" is conspicuously absent in the article above. The
"youths" were killed during the French riots, which are discussed at greater
length here.
Louis Farrakhan's
First Congressman. At this particular time in history, it is a matter of note that Congress is
about to receive its first Muslim member. ... [Keith] Ellison's Muslim faith has generated no controversy in
the campaign. On the contrary, it has served to insulate aspects of his public record from close scrutiny
in a city whose dominant news organ, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, is a paragon of political correctness.
With the exception of columnist Katherine Kersten, the Star Tribune has scrupulously avoided examining Ellison's
long train of troubling associations, foremost among them his ties to the Nation of Islam.
The Terrorists Among
Us: Reporting the arrests, the New York Times called the men "South Asians" —
though one of them was an Egyptian, two were Somali, and most had been born in Canada — thus
concealing by an inaccurate euphemism the most salient characteristic of the alleged plotters: that
they were all Muslims.
Poisonously
biased. CNN's Christiane Amanpour has set a new standard -- and not the kind a news
network usually trumpets. God's Jewish Warriors, her two-hour screed against Israeli settlers and
American supporters of Israel, is the most poisonously biased and factually shoddy feature to air on
mainstream American television in recent memory.
Stop
Our Networks from Helping Al Qaeda. You have seen it. We have all seen it. Worst of
all, the families of the heroic soldiers killed, have seen it. "It," is a video montage of American
military vehicle after American military vehicle, getting blown up in Iraq by Improvised Explosive Devices,
or IED's. … More often than not, our very networks will use this footage as a propaganda tool to demonstrate
to the American people that "Bush's war" in Iraq is a failure. Yes, we have all seen these horrible
images, but did you ever ask yourself where the video came from?
Does AP stand for Al-Qaeda
Propaganda? The Associated Press, the reliable just-the-facts news agency you and I once knew,
no longer exists. Amoral propagandists have taken over. It is not only in the disturbing matter
of Bilal Hussein, AP photograher and al-Qaeda associate,
being held without
charge in U.S. custody in Iraq that this is evident. But also in the departure from balanced, nonpartisan
coverage that has always been the AP's promise to us, its customers.
Underreporting
Muslim violence: Like many news junkies, I've noticed that stories putting Muslims in a
bad light tend to be sketchy and underreported. A minor example is the comment — "the
greatest terrorists in the world occupy the White House" — by the head Muslim chaplain of
New York City's prisons. … A much bigger example is the misleadingly low-key reporting of the
Ilan Halimi murder in Paris.
Baltimore Sun Leaves Terrorism
out of Nigerian Oil Violence. One country's terrorist menace is one Baltimore Sun reporter's
insurgency.
How Islamic
Terrorists Manipulate the Media: Thuggery helps explain the obscenely low volume of negative
press coverage of the Palestinian Authority, Fatah, Hamas, Hezbollah, and others. But it doesn't
account for all, or even most, of the persistently slanted coverage. As any veteran of Middle East
media coverage knows, many Arab stringers and free-lancers — hired on the cheap by Western
outlets, ostensibly because of their superior knowledge for local leaders and events — see
it as their duty to demonize Israel, while exalting fellow Arabs or Muslims.
The Imam Scam and the
Democrats' House of Games. Since [9/11/2001], it's doubtful that even the most ardently PC liberal
has boarded any airplane without carefully evaluating all fellow passengers — and not to evade
inebriated conventioneers. It is that same indelible angst of their brothers' making which a group of
Muslims exploited last month to perpetrate a hideous apparent hoax. And the soon-to-be empowered Democrats
and their gullible accomplices in the media proved the perfect patsies for this odious plan to make the
skies ever more dangerous for Americans.
Note: There is much more discussion of the Minneapolis incident
on this page.
CAIR, Hamas and the House Candidate.
Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison is shaping up to be the first-ever Muslim member of Congress, and the
mainstream media is treating his candidacy as an unalloyed triumph of multiculturalism.
A Conversion You
Can't Refuse. The kidnapping in Gaza of two Fox News reporters, and the significance of their
subsequent "conversion" to Islam at gunpoint, vanished from the front pages after their August 27
release. … Their plight shows the problems of evaluating reports emanating from areas infested
by terrorist groups and authoritarian governments. We know already that some "journalists" are
simply propagandists … But a larger problem is that honest local reporters have their lives
threatened if they tell the truth.
Why abduct us? We cede our
values for free. Did you see that video of the two Fox journalists announcing they'd converted
to Islam? The larger problem, it seems to me, is that much of the rest of the Western media have also
converted to Islam, and there seems to be no way to get them to convert back to journalism.
Covering the Conflict in the
North: The media's coverage of Israel's conflict with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist
group was filled with examples of bias, inaccuracy, and manipulation. While firing thousands of rockets
into Israeli cities, Hezbollah was able to frequently manipulate the media into portraying the conflict as
a "disproportionate" Israeli attack against Lebanese civilians.
War on terror is also war against
liberal media and politicians. Terrorists around the world love America's liberal politicians
and liberal media who support these so-called "insurgents" and "freedom fighters." Insurgents?
Freedom fighters? No, they are cold-blooded murderers with a mission to destroy every Jew, Christian and
infidel if they do not convert to radical Islam. And every American, by definition, is an infidel.
Muslims
urged to buy influence in world media. Muslim tycoons should buy stakes in global media outlets
to help change anti-Muslim attitudes around the world, ministers from Islamic countries heard at a conference
in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday [9/13/2006].
Riots over mosque on the Queen's
doorstep. The outbreak of disorder began after a mother and her daughter were set upon by a gang
of 20 Asian youths armed with baseball bats, iron bars and pitchforks. The shaven-headed thugs — all
dressed in white robes — launched the attack after pouring out of a former office building which is
being used as an unofficial mosque.
[There they go again, calling young Muslim men "Asian youths" to avoid calling them what they are.]
CBS's Wallace Played Softball in Interview
With Iran's Leader. A conservative media watchdog organization says while the recently televised
interview of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by CBS's Mike Wallace was not as embarrassing as Dan
Rather's 2003 talk with Saddam Hussein, it was clear Wallace was kissing up to the Iranian strongman.
Media in Lebanon — The fevered
manufacture of the liberal agenda. There is so much honest news to peddle, I don't know why
the media is offering us so much pure visible tommyrot when it comes to the Israeli attacks, unless
they openly favor Hezbollah and have an axe to grind.
Movie shows photo fraud involved in wartime
journalism. Numerous examples of Photoshop embellishment and throw-down toys carefully
arranged by news photographers to evoke emotion.
Speaking of fraud...
No more ambulances for terror.
I remind you again of CNN's Anderson Cooper's description last month of Hizballah's ruse: "…One by
one, they told the ambulances to turn on their sirens and to zoom off, and people taking that picture
would be reporting, I guess, the idea that these ambulances were zooming off to treat civilian
casualties, when in fact, these ambulances were literally going back and forth down the street
just for people to take pictures of them."
Use and Abuse of
Euphemism: When a coven of Islamist terrorists got arrested in Canada, the news wires initially had a devil of a
time conveying the information that, well, a coven of Islamist terrorists had been arrested. The New
York Times reported that the suspects were "mainly of South Asian descent." Many reporters quoted
Mike McDonell, a police spokesman, who said the terrorists "represent the broad strata of our society."
The Criminalization of
Christianity: Unfortunately, the widespread persecution of Christians around the world
continues unabated and receives almost no attention from the international media. For instance,
over the last several months, nearly 2,000 Christians in one African nation have been rounded up and
imprisoned. Yet these victims of religious persecution have received nowhere near the
attention [Abdul] Rahman received.
When is Jihad Not
Jihad? When it is spiritual struggle. Witness the latest European Union
pronouncement, which advocates an exclusive definition of jihad as "spiritual struggle" in the
public discourse, lest the tender sensibilities of Muslims be offended.
Understanding Bias: You click
on MSNBC.com and notice a hot new development in the Mideast. How should you go about analyzing the
news report? There are certain questions you can keep in mind that may reveal underlying bias.
Tactical
victory no match for media superiority. Israel has yet to figure out that wars aren't just fought
on the battlefield. They are also fought on the mediafield. And the mediafield ultimately is larger
than the battlefield. Why? Because world opinion is what ultimately settles issues of world politics.
Louis Farrakhan Rips 'Wicked Jews'
in Hollywood. It's been nearly a month since Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakahan blamed
"Zionists and neo-cons" for "manipulating" President Bush into invading Iraq – before blasting
"wicked Jews" in Hollywood for promoting "lesbianism [and] homosexuality." Yet, outside of a few
newspapers in Chicago, the same press that showers positive coverage on Farrakhan's Million Man marches
has yet to get around to covering his Feb. 26 Saviours Day speech.
Liberal use of
language: Officials of that great bastion of liberalism — the European
Union — reportedly want to replace the term "Islamic terrorism" with "terrorists who
abusively invoke Islam."
Sometimes survival gets a bit noisy.
If the Jews would just die without making a lot of noise, the Nice People could get on with the really important
things in life, stuffing their faces with salmon and bean sprouts, watching the Rev. Billy Don Moyers pontificate
on PBS, and making more Nice People. The Nice People, manipulated by the coverage of the fighting in
Lebanon, are getting fed up with the Israelis, who are acting as if they have the right to
survive ….
Islamic
States Press for Limits on Free Expression. Islamic groups and governments are pressing ahead
with a campaign to have international organizations take steps, including legal ones, to provide protection
for their religion in the wake of the Mohammed cartoon controversy.
Hell no, we
won't work. After the rampages last fall, mostly by unemployed and disaffected
Muslims — almost universally referred to as "French youths" by an international press
too afraid to reports facts that may not be considered polite — French Prime Minister
Dominuque de Villepin has proposed measures designed to encourage French companies to hire more
young workers.
Al Jazeera goes global. Al Jazeera
is ready for America, but is America ready for Al Jazeera? The Al Jazeera Channel, the controversial
Arab-language network that has emerged as the principal television news source in the Arab world, is going
global with an international English-language spin-off designed for European and American audiences.
What
is 'Human Rights Watch' watching? When it comes to Israel and its enemies, Human Rights Watch
cooks the books about facts, cheats on interviews, and puts out predetermined conclusions that are driven more
by their ideology than by evidence. These are serious accusations, and they are demonstrably true.
American
news media: little courage and little honesty. Everyone and his mother knows
why the networks and the print journals haven't shown the cartoons — they fear Muslims blowing
up their buildings and stabbing their editors to death. The only people who deny this are the news
media. They all claim that they won't show the [Mohammed] cartoons because of sensitivity to Muslim
feelings.
Note: There is a separate page for material about
the Riots over the Mohammed Cartoons.
PBS Station Nixes Show On Terrorism. Following
last-minute cries of protest from Muslim leaders last week, a Public Broadcasting Service affiliate in Dallas
canceled the premiere of a documentary on the roots of Islamic terrorism. "The Roots of War: The
Road to Peace" was scheduled to air on KERA-TV on Sunday, January 29, but the premiere was postponed by
the station's managers after a local Muslim group alleged that the program contains inaccuracies and
anti-Muslim bias.
Lott's Comments Get 20 Times the
Coverage of Murray's: The mainstream media gave former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's
comments praising his Senate colleague Strom Thurmond nearly 20 times the coverage it devoted to Sen.
Patty Murray's remarks praising Osama bin Laden during the same period of time.
Protecting
Muhammad: The most striking aspect of the controversy is the leverage of the offended
Muslim community. Even in the United States, even a publication as venturesome as Slate magazine
describes the offending caricatures but is careful not to reproduce them. A quite natural curiosity
attaches to how these 12 caricatures actually looked.
NASCAR Furious
With NBC Over 'Dateline' Segment. "It is outrageous that a news organization of NBC's
stature would stoop to the level of going out to create news instead of reporting news," [NASCAR
spokesman Ramsey] Poston said [4/5/2006]. "Any legitimate journalist in America should be
embarrassed by this stunt. The obvious intent by NBC was to evoke reaction, and we are
confident our fans won't take the bait," he said.
More Muslim Enemies from
Within: If this event had been an anti-Muslim rally, the story would be front-page news.
Editorialists and academics would be decrying racial and religious intolerance. Left-wing celebrities
and MTV veejays would be hectoring us about the need for unity and harmony. But it was an anti-American
rally.
This article is on topic, really. Read the whole thing.
Muslims and media: There's
one good thing about the news that Alwaleed bin Talal, the richest Saudi prince in the world, just bought
Harvard and Georgetown Universities — or, at least buried them up to their ivy in
$40 million. It gives everybody reason to relive a McAuliffe moment.
Radical Arabs Seek Influence
Over U.S. Media. There are terrorists in the Muslim world seething with
hatred for all Americans. This war, unlike any other we have confronted, presents
us with an enemy that is everywhere and nowhere. The media are a key battleground. It
is a war largely without nation-state soldiers in uniforms. To add to the confusion, our
enemy has skillfully blurred the lines between bloodthirsty murderers and legitimately religious
people. Thus, the pressure for "tolerance" that often fails to distinguish the former from
the latter.
A thug by any
other name... It's unclear how [Christophe] Bertossi would prefer that the violent young
Muslims (invariably called "French youths" in the mainstream media) be treated. If torching cars
and destroying schools isn't criminal and terrorist behavior, nothing is.
Al Qaeda Loves Our
Unpatriotic Media. The New York Times, CBS, and other news organizations
have joined with the ACLU in demanding that the Pentagon release more sensational photos
and videos of Iraqi prisoner abuse. The inevitable result of such disclosure,
according to General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is
that Islamic terrorists will exploit the material and kill Americans. Do our media care?
Well, they
got me.... The First Amendment and I have been evicted from ABC Radio in
Washington, DC. On July 25th, the Council on American-Islamic Relations demanded
that I be "punished" for my on-air statements regarding Islam and its tragic connections to
terrorism. Three days later, 630 WMAL and ABC Radio suspended me without pay for
comments deemed "hate radio" by CAIR.
CAIR killing free
speech in the U.S.? Though there is some disagreement between local talk station
WMAL and fired mid-morning host Michael Graham over the details of his recent termination, one
thing is not in dispute: the big winner is the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which
called for his ouster, yet has never specifically condemned Islamic terrorist organizations such
as Hamas or Hezbollah.
French Fried Muslim
Madness. Here's the typical feed coming from liberal thought police central: "Riots
have broken out in Paris suburbs. This wave of destruction has been at the hand of North African
and Middle Eastern descent French youths who have been disenfranchised and unemployed by haughty white
French people." Yeah, if you do a little digging, I bet you'd find that, as Mark Steyn wrote, the
names of the "French youths" culpable for this anarchy are not Pierre, Patrice, Henri and Claude, but
rather Habib, Achmed and Mohamed.
Cowed by CAIR: DC talk
station fires host. Washington, D.C. talk radio station WMAL, 630 AM, has caved to pressure from
the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a group that has savaged journalists, critics of radical Islam, even
the Fox TV show "24" but which just as steadfastly has refused to specifically condemn various Islamic
terrorist organizations.
Take off the muzzle.
These days, there's very little you can't do on television. However, there are plenty of things that you
can't say, on television or in print. Not because these things aren't true, but because they're
considered politically incorrect.
Michael Graham,
spiked by ABC. Remember this the next time ABC toots its own horn as a defender
of free speech. Michael Graham, a popular talk-radio host on ABC-owned WMAL in Washington,
D.C., publicly declared that "Islam is a terror organization." Under pressure from a
radical Islamic group, ABC fired him.
Excellent
Caution: Muslims
easily inflamed. Absent from this blame exchange is any recognition that many Muslims
can be incited to violence by anything or nothing. It's as if they live poised for outrage.
NPR Repeatedly Describes Far-Left
Islamists as "Conservative". When it comes to ideological labeling, the media standard is to
presume that the bad guys are the conservatives or the ones on the right. How else to explain "hard
right" and "conservative" communists when communism is on the far left?
Privatize PBS and NPR. PBS
became the object of outraged citizens when it broadcast a blatantly anti-Boy Scout documentary called "A
Scout's Honor" in 2001. And last December, "Mohammed: Legacy of a Prophet" was more an infomercial
for Islam than an objective documentary. To a greater extent even than PBS, NPR has become a mouthpiece
for the radical left. Conservatives have their talk radio and Christian stations while liberals occupy
the mainstream media. But the radical Left has found its home at NPR.
Newsweek
and the rioters: One will have to search extensively for any editorials
condemning these primitives in the Western press, let alone in the Muslim press. This
is because moral expectations of Muslims are lower than those of other religious
groups. Behavior that would be held in contempt if engaged in by Christians
or Jews is not only not condemned, it is frequently "understood" when done by Muslims.
Remember
9/11: Stop sanitizing the killers. Contrast the media whitewashing of our
Islamofascist enemies with the press coverage of the Waco, Texas, siege in
1993 — which constantly reminded us that David Koresh and his Branch Davidian
followers were members of a "peculiar religious sect" and "a group of religious
zealots with a known propensity for violence".
The
academic/media complex. For some reason, Ramadan's inability to enter the
country for an extended stay in an influential post seems to raise the hackles of weighty
editorial pages from around the country. Why would this particular academic get such
special treatment? It is just another manifestation of class solidarity within
the liberal academic/media complex.
War
without spin: This is no "guerilla insurgency." By definition, "guerillas"
or "insurgents" represent an organized political alternative to an established
regime. Radical Sunni and Shi'ite clerics like Muqtada Al-Sadr, who tortured and
killed 200 men, women and children, and buried them in a mass grave in Najaf, don't
promise to make things better for the Iraqi people. Nor do the remaining Baath
Party warlords or foreign extremists like Abu Musab Al Zarqawi. These men inciting
gunfights in Iraq aren't "insurgents," they are anarchists. They offer no unified
"platform" other than "jihad!"
Oprah's
Mag Misses the Mark. Incredibly, the lengthy 'O' article completely
ignores a main factor behind Islamist terror — the incitement to violence
that continually spews forth from Palestinian media and mosques….
The Hate
Crimes That Weren't. The public discourse on Islam and terrorism is
largely dominated by self-important blowhards who are wrong and wrong again, wrong
consistently, and yet are never called to account and are called upon as "experts"
again and again.
Women's magazine offers tips to
terrorists. Al Qaeda has introduced an online women's magazine with articles including
dietary advice for suicide bombers and tips on how to "dominate the passions" before blowing yourself up.
Is the Media
Downplaying Possible Muslim Connection to New Jersey Murders? An
Israeli author and lecturer says he is aggravated that the American news
media has once again chosen to ignore a major story because it paints the
religion of Islam in a bad light. The bodies of a Coptic Christian family
were found in their New Jersey home on January 14. Hossam Armanious, an
immigrant from Egypt, his wife and their two daughters had been bound
and gagged, and their throats slashed.
Jihad at the St.
Petersburg Times: Over the past month, Mike Frazier has received, by his count, six
death threats and 47 menacing phone calls. ... Such is the price Frazier has paid for criticizing
the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the most influential radical Islamist group in the United
States. Frazier's plight is symptomatic of the politically correct hysterics that critics of
militant Islam have been subjected to since 9/11, as anyone who dares question the motives of certain
American Muslims is invariably tarred as an "Islamophobe" by the mainstream press.
CAIR's war
on conservative radio: The Council on American-Islamic Relations won't condemn
Muslim fanatics, but it has declared war on outspoken Americans who will. CAIR, which
calls itself "America's largest Islamic civil liberties group," has lately focused its wrath
on conservative radio talk show hosts.
Four
Myths About Muslims: Given the ground rules of politically correct
discourse, only a minority may criticize a minority — only a Muslim may criticize
Muslims.
Pushing
the bias button: The Council on American-Islamic Relations and other
lobbying groups are reporting a rising tide of anti-Muslim bigotry and a massive
increase in anti-Arab crime in America. Obvious questions: What
rising tide? What massive increase?
More
Muslim hate crime myths: They milked the compassion of their
communities. They won sympathy from the media and politicians. And now it appears
they were all hate crime hucksters who cried "racism" to cash in on the
terrorist attacks.
Four Myths About Muslims:
While the attacks of September 11th roused a dormant patriotism in the collective American bosom, it also
unveiled how deeply entrenched public discourse is in political correctness. Day after day the "war on
terror" brings more misinformation, disinformation and propaganda. Most security measures are either
window dressings for public consumption or usurpations of civil liberties by power-hungry elements within
the bowels of bureaucracy.
The lie heard round
the world: Some have theorized that al-Dura was accidentally killed by Palestinians
and then immediately transformed into a martyr to cover up the mistake. Others believe it is
possible that he was intentionally sacrificed because his father had been a little too friendly
with Israelis. We will probably never know. But one thing is certain — the story
of the deliberate killing of 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura by Israeli soldiers was a damnable lie.
Oprah's
Lies, Part II: Oprah's crash course program "Islam 101", which aired on
October 5, still has me reeling. In Oprah's interview with
Queen Rania of Jordan, the Queen affirmed that Islam "doesn't
impose anything" on people.
Web site:
Honest Reporting: "Israel is in the
midst of a battle for public opinion — waged primarily via the media. To ensure Israel is
represented fairly and accurately HonestReporting monitors the media, exposes cases of bias,
promotes balance, and effects change through education and action."
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