Posted on 10/29/2002 4:12:25 AM PST by vannrox
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Sticks To The Comfortable Facts 10/28/2002
What are media propagandists to do under such circumstances? Thursday evening, major news outlets chose to lead with only the most "politically-correct" facts. They chose to avoid giving a description of either man or to apply only the labels least painful to liberals. Here is how individual networks handled the coverage:
ABC's World News Tonight - Peter Jennings announced the story with no mention of religion or illegal alien status:
"Good evening everyone. The police in Maryland say tonight that the two men who have terrorized the Washington suburbs are behind bars. Their names are John Allen Muhammad, who is 42-years-old, and John Lee Malvo who is 17 and may be Muhammad's stepson." (All other networks reported correctly that Malvo was not the stepson. Only ABC still had this detail incorrect at this point.)
Malvo was described later as "from Jamaica" and "had once been charged by the INS with being in the U.S. illegally." (Pussy-footing if ever we've heard it!)
Muhammad is described as "an American" who spent "fifteen years in the military". He was a "bitter man" who had served in the Gulf War. Only at the tail end of the reports on the arrests does it come out that he was "associated with the Nation of Islam".
CBS Evening News - Dan Rather didn't find relevance in Muhammad's religion:
"Caught napping. Tonight the extraordinary inside story of the sniper bust, the car turned into a mobile sniper's next, the missed chances for an arrest along the way, the suspect's sordid past and how their own phone calls and alert citizens finally broke the case open. Also tonight: Terror in Moscow. Muslim Chechen gunmen holding a theater audience hostage threaten a massacre of hundreds."
So religion is relevant if you're a Chechen terrorist!
Reporter Jim Stewart tiptoed around the possibility that Malvo was in this country illegally:
"Task force detectives soon traced that partial print to 17-year-old John Lee Malvo whose fingerprints were on file with the INS because of a previous deportation to his native Jamaica."
We are left to wonder if he was now here legally.
Later, in a report from Tacoma, Washington, Vince Gonzales had plenty to say about Muhammad's military record, yet pooh-poohed a religious motive:
"About the same time he joined the army Muhammad converted to Islam, but authorities say religion was not a motive."
CNN NewsNight - The folks at NewsNight made an especially valiant attempt to bury any facts they found disturbing.
Jeanne Meserve: "John Lee Malvo's Jamaican heritage may have helped investigators piece together some of the clues that cracked this case."
Aaron Brown: "The question of who they are. The army veteran and the teenager."
Kathleen Koch: "Apprehended: 41-year-old John Allen Muhammad, a Gulf War army veteran and a 17-year-old John Lee Malvo."
Brown did give brief mention to the Nation of Islam 40 minutes into the program, after stressing his military training and service:
"(L)ong before he changed his name friends say he became involved in causes. He helped provide security for the Million Man March in Washington in '95 according to one friend, not long after converting to Islam."
NBC Nightly News - Here is Tom Brokaw's opener:
"Tonight, the arrest. The manhunt for the Washington area sniper appears to be over. A former army soldier and a teenager are in jail."
Reporter David Bloom referred to Malvo as a "Jamaican-born 17-year-old". Joe Johns elaborated at length on Muhammad's military record, calling him an "angry army man". Only at the end of his story did he briefly mention Muhammad's involvement with the Nation of Islam.
"For the past ten years, Muhammad has worshiped with the Nation of Islam, and published reports say he was a security guard at Louis Farrakhan's Million Man March. Muhammad attended a mosque in Seattle, NBC News has been told. The Nation of Islam tonight did not return out calls."
Daily during the hunt for these killers, reporters, anchors and viewers alike asked if Islamic extremism and/or organized terrorism could be involved. Yet when facts are emerging, these media outlets chose to initially bury truths that they found inconvenient. Illegal aliens who commit violent crimes and religious extremism from non-Christians must be terribly difficult for liberal ideologists to digest. Of course, the military is much easier to blame. Furthermore, they are convinced that the great unwashed - the conservatives - will be motivated by these facts to abuse some poor innocent.
Join me in asking: 'What could be more pathetic than newspeople who put ideology above truth?' Below are the email addresses.
ABC World News Tonight email contact page
CNN NewsNight email contact page
Read more here:
NewsMax.com: Leftist Media Try to Blame Military for Sniper Suspect CNSNews.com: Gun Control Group Warns of 'Sniper Subculture' CNSNews.com: Suspected Sniper and Victim Rallied with Farrakhan Yahoo!: Farrakhan: Sniper Suspect Was Member The Other Side of the Coin Viewers of CNBC's The News with Brian Williams were received an entirely different experience. Guest Brian Levin, a California State University professor of criminal justice and a former NYC police officer called it like he saw it, in spite of some gentle pushes from anchor Brian Williams in the direction of proper P.C.-ness.
Levin: "This fellow is a sociopath. He was probably a sociopath for some time. That's someone who knows right from wrong but gets a sense of power. And unfortunately, when you put into that the hatefulness of the Nation of Islam, which is a bigoted, extreme theology. It is not the same thing as Islam. Louis Farrakhan has called white people devils and ahs criticized the United States. This kind of rhetoric can label regular Americans as legitimate targets for violence when you have someone who is a festering ball of anger."
Williams: "And that would include targets and now the dead in Washington of mixed races?"
Levin: "That's exactly right because these people who don't follow this extreme form of theology which says that the real black people came here on space ships and that white men are the devils and all that kind of stuff. This rhetoric has an effect, especially when you have it on someone who is unstable, not a psychologically disordered person, but someone who certainly has a behavioral disorder, that can have an effect. And this kind of rhetoric labels regular Americans as legitimate targets for violence."
Williams: "Let me ask you how much you factor in Gulf War experience din this kind of thing?"
Levin: "Look, the vast majority of people who went to war, like my father, were very peaceful people. But from some who believe they've played by the rules their entire life, they did everything they were supposed to do, and at the end of the game, they didn't rack up the points they have, they thought they would, rather opt out of the game. And a group like Nation of Islam, for instance, is one such group, which wants a separate society for African-Americans, and that's dangerous. Nation of Islam rhetoric is, in many ways, as bad as the Ku Klux Klan. What's so interesting, though, is they've been relatively peaceful in their membership up until now."
When you feel your personal media bias tolerance gauge rising into the red zone, don't throw stuff at the TV screen! Send your suggestion to outrage@fairpress.org! Each week, one hideous example of media bias will be selected for closer examination. Hmmmmmm . . .
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