Headless Body In Gutless Press (Mark Steyn On Honor Killings And The MSM Alert)

National Review ^ | 2/15/2009 | Mark Steyn

[goldstategop]

Just asking, but are beheadings common in western New York? I used to spend a lot of time in that neck of the woods and I don't remember decapitation as a routine form of murder. Yet the killing of Aasiya Hassan seems to have elicited a very muted response.

When poor Mrs Hassan's husband launched his TV network to counter negative stereotypes of Muslims, he had no difficulty generating column inches, as far afield as The Columbus Dispatch, The Detroit Free Press, The San Jose Mercury News, Variety, NBC News, the Voice of America and the Canadian Press. The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle put the couple on the front page under the headline "Infant TV Network Unveils The Face Of Muslim News".

But, when Muzzammil Hassan kills his wife and "the face of Muslim news" is unveiled rather more literally, detached from her corpse at his TV studios, it's all he can do to make the local press - page 26 of Newsday, plus The Buffalo News, and a very oddly angled piece in the usually gung-ho New York Post, "Buffalo Beheading: Money Woe Spurred Slay".

Oh, really? He beheaded her for some goofy clause in the insurance policy? Not exactly:

An upstate TV exec who set up a channel promoting Muslims as peace-loving people was stressed about his failing business in the days before he allegedly chopped off his estranged wife's head, a friend of the couple said today.

Ah.

"He was worried about the station's future," said Dr. Khalid Qazi, a friend of the couple and president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council of Western New York, who last spoke to the Hassans a week ago...

"Domestic violence is despicable, and Islam condones it in no way whatever," he said.

"Murders are being committed in the US every day by people of all faiths."

Well, maybe. But for sheer news value you'd think this one might stand out. Look at this picture. That's the very definition of "moderate Muslim". Look at the late Aasiya Hassan, beautifully coiffed, glossy-lipped. On countless occasions since 9/11, I've found myself at lunch or dinner in New York, London, Washington, Paris or some other western city, sitting next to a modern Muslim woman like Mrs Hassan telling me how horrified she is at how hijabs and burqas, honor killings and genital mutilation, forced cousin marriages and the disproportionate number of Muslim wives in European battered women's shelters, how all these have come to define Muslim womanhood in the 21st century. Yet Aasiya Hassan ended up no differently - all because her husband's TV network had a cashflow problem?

The media's lack of curiosity is in marked contrast to their willingness to propagandize for the launch of Mr Hassan's station. It also helps explain why the US newspaper business is dying.

[goldstategop]

The MSM buries the topic of "honor killings" and Islamic misogynism in the back page. No wonder its undergoing a slow death.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[omega4179]

Already posted but if an Amish beheaded his wife it would be screaming headlines. The MSM and people in general are petrified of Islamofascists and their rusty knives.

[Steely Tom]

Hey, you gotta watch it when you get into factual reporting of the carrying-ons of the followers of the prophet.

Unlike Republicans, they’ll kill you.

The fearless “free press” draws the line at that point.

Now back to MSM story number 99,426 about narrow-minded bigoted conservatives and how intolerant they are.

[Venturer]

I guess this means the TV station will close down for a week or so, until CAIR finds a new man to run it.

[elcid1970]

Muslims: you can put neckties on them, teach them impeccable English, and they still turn out to be nothing but BLOODY SAVAGES!!!

):^(

[2banana]

But just let your leg wonder outside a bathroom stall in a “wide stance” and the MSM will be all over it for weeks...

[goldstategop]

I think you meant Robert Spencer's Jihad Watch version. The point is that political incorrectness does not arouse MSM curiosity. If a Christian husband had beheaded his wife, it would be front-page news all over the country and be the leader in the nightly newscasts. When an alleged "moderate" Muslim commits the crime, there's complete silence.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[Republic of Texas]

This is one that should be posted everyday to make up for the lack of coverage in the MSM. Kidding, but we should email this story to the big media companies, everyday. All of us.

[anglian]

Pamela Geller has just posted at Atlas Shrugs a harrowing collection of photographs of honor killing victims. Scroll and scroll, and it just keeps going — so many victims, and still these photographs represent only the tiniest fraction of honor killing victims worldwide. http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/02/losing-our-heads-.html
Note that the vast majority of the victims pictured were living in America or elsewhere in the West.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/024864.php#respond

[AirForceMom]

Said this on the other thread. I live in Buffalo and didn’t find this out locally .... I read it here.

[Fred Nerks]

Muzzammil Hassan came to America from Pakistan 25 years ago. He became a successful banker in Buffalo, New York, near the famed Niagara Falls.

While he and his wife were happy to be in the United States, they were upset by the negative perceptions of Muslims, and particularly how this perception might affect their children.

That is how they came up with the idea of Bridges TV. Mr. Hassan's wife challenged him to start it.

Muzzammil Hassan MUZZAMMIL HASSAN, FOUNDER, BRIDGES TV

"I had no background in television. I didn't know anything about TV. Her comment was, 'you have an M.B.A. (masters degree in business) why don't you write a business plan?'"

And so he did. He quit his job at the bank and for the next two to three years worked almost non-stop in developing an English language television network that offers news and entertainment for Muslims.

Mr. Hassan hopes Bridges TV lives up to its name by uniting American Muslims and by helping non-Muslims overcome the negative images they may have of both Muslims and Islam.

"There should be a Muslim media so that Muslim children growing up in America grow up with the self confidence and high self esteem about their identity both as Americans and as Muslims."

SOURCE

[calex59]

It is pretty frickin’ bad when Canada seems more free than the US! We have sunk to low status when we let our News Media get away with down playing this sh**!

[hyperconservative]

Well, the Drive-By media and their shrinking audience are certainly petrified of the islamic fascist scum but conservatives are not afraid of anybody, especially those barbarians from the ROP.

[RipSawyer]

“Already posted but if an Amish beheaded his wife it would be screaming headlines.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

If Sarah Palin’s second cousin’s barber’s nephew’s accountant’s brother-in-law did it you would be seeing nothing else nonstop for ninety days with special updates every hour.

[Charles Martel]

From the Bridges TV website:

"This website is temporarily down for maintenance."

[Eric in the Ozarks]

‘zackly.

[LibFreeOrDie]

In related ROP NY news:

Afghan diplomat Mohammed Fagirad charged in all-day wife beating

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2186366/posts

[Congressman Billybob]

You are both right. Obama is dead wrong. The press is dead wrong. I wrote the column below, before this "moderate" Muslim beheaded his wife.

Congressman Billybob

Latest article, "Offending the Islamofascists"

The Declaration, the Constitution, parts of the Federalist, and America's Owner's Manual, here.

[omega4179]

Don’t remind me I work with 2 guys that really think Sarah Palin said that she can see Russia out her window, not Tina Fey.

[kellynla]

BOOKMARK