Did Media Negligently Create Koran Burning Controversy?

NewsBusters ^ | September 9, 2010 | Noel Sheppard

[Stoat]

Did Media Negligently Create Koran Burning Controversy?

By Noel Sheppard (Bio | Archive)
Thu, 09/09/2010 - 16:55 ET

As the ninth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, and Americans fret about a Pastor they never heard of burning Korans to commemorate the event, people on both sides of the political aisle should be asking a serious question: did the media negligently create this controversy?

After all, Terry Jones has a tiny, 50 member, non-denominational church in Gainesville, Florida.

Should some unknown Pastor - with a following smaller than what's normally in line at an In-n-Out restaurant drive-thru! - wanting to burn Korans generate such a media firestorm that an international incident and our national security are threatened?

As Mike Thomas of the Orlando Sentinel wrote Wednesday, if you knew the real attention-getting background of Jones, the answer would be a definitive "No":  

This is a guy who looks like Jed Clampett wearing a Hulk Hogan mustache, who uses words like "tragical," who earlier this year launched a "No homo mayor'' campaign against a candidate in Gainesville.

Last year Jones sent the kids of the congregation off to school in "Islam is of the devil" T-shirts. Of course they got booted, which got Jones an enticing taste of media attention.

With none of this getting Jones the attention he craved, he decided to put a truck in a field with a sign on it saying, "International Burn a Koran Day":

It was like the three strawberries coming into alignment on a million-dollar slot machine. The New York Times and The Associated Press whipped out their notepads. The networks and cable stations broke out the indignant anchors.

Indeed they did as evidenced by NewsBusters reports here and here. And, as Thomas pointed out, Jones is just eating it up:

This is someone who can barely scrape together enough people to carry a tune in church, and now he has the world breathlessly waiting for his next words.

He is a regular Moses on the mountaintop, urging the spineless Christians to take a stand against the Muslim hordes. [...]

That all this might get some 20-year-old kid from Ohio blown away in Afghanistan isn't about to stop Jones now.

The good pastor has done found his version of 72 virgins and is living in paradise.

Indeed. And who are really to blame?

We created the Rev. Terry Jones from dust. And in two weeks, to dust he shall return. Then we'll move on to the guys who plan to run over the Quran at their monster-truck pull. Whatever it takes to keep your attention. [...]

We could help head off such future nonsense if we folded up the circus tent and left Jones alone with his blowtorch and 30 followers.

Maybe if Gen. Petraeus told the media that it isn't Rev. Jones who is endangering troops. That it is our coverage of Rev. Jones. That without us, this book burning would be little more than a grainy video on YouTube.

Exactly.

America like any country has its share of crazy people with crazy ideas. If such folks were ignored rather than given such a huge platform to spread their word from, we would all be the better for it.

Unfortunately, just as media were exactly what Jones needed, he fit their bill perfectly.

For weeks now, the press as a result of America's opposition to the Ground Zero mosque have been trying to convince the citizenry that we are an Islamophobic nation that hates Muslims. Despite the lack of any supporting evidence, this has been the media narrative for approaching a month.

With this in mind, an attention-seeking, unknown Pastor advertising a Koran bonfire was exactly what the press needed to prove once and for all just how much antipathy there is for Muslims here.

Sadly, they gave this guy his fifteen minutes of fame without any regard for the harm that could be done to Americans living abroad, in particular those fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. More hypocritically, so-called journalists are now blaming Jones for endangering the lives of others.

Wouldn't this not be the case if they ignored him? Isn't it all the press attention he's gotten that has actually caused this controversy? If media really are worried that his actions might result in an international incident, given how few people there are in his own area that care what he's got to say, couldn't they just similarly pay him no mind?

Consider that Gainesville and surrounds has 258,000 residents. This means that two-hundredths of one percent of the population of this city are members of his church. Right now there are probably more media vans in Gainesville than people who care what this guy says.

Can't press members claiming they're concerned with what his Koran burning will do just pack up those vans, go home, and do us all a favor? If nobody was there to cover the event Saturday, maybe Jones would change his mind and start thinking up his next attention-getting event.

On the flipside, this controversy has done us all a favor in exposing the media's hypocrisy concerning so-called "Islamophobia."

Consider that the press are largely in favor of the Ground Zero mosque despite being in the minority concerning this matter. They base their view on the Islamic center backers having the Constitutional right to build at that location regardless of how anyone feels about it. Yet, these same people are now in an uproar over Jones without a care for his Constitutional right to burn Korans.

As such, the media have shown themselves far more concerned for the feelings and the rights of Muslims than Judeo-Christians, and far more worried about offending foreigners than the 67 percent of Americans who are opposed to the Ground Zero mosque.

I guess we have Jones to thank for making this hypocrisy apparent to us. 

[Stoat]

>>>Did Media Negligently Create Koran Burning Controversy?

I wonder what Cap’t Obvious would say...

He might say "the article and links are still worth reading even if the title suggests an obvious answer" ;-)

[GoCards]

Its not over. The pastor is re assessing his decision. Breaking on CNN. Rick Sanchez and some lady are completely insane over this. They have brought in the Rev. Jessee Jackson to pray with this pastor. OMG, it is getting hysterical.

I believe the media has blood on their hands. THere is no condemnation over flag burning this evening either.

[the invisib1e hand]

I wonder if that Pastor is gonna get a reality tv show or do the talk show circuit. will we ever know what the FBI said to him? Did they treat him to a multimedia reenactment of Waco and Ruby Ridge?

[the invisib1e hand]

OMG, it is getting hysterical.

Great theater. This pastor deserves an oscar or whatever. Wait -- take obama's nobel and give it to him.

[jivin gene]

Cowards covering/justifying the cowardly acts of cowards. That is what the LSM is and has always been.

[TornadoAlley3]

*

[Stoat]

I wonder if that Pastor is gonna get a reality tv show or do the talk show circuit. will we ever know what the FBI said to him?

I would say the talk show circuit because he appears to be an attention-whore and the media would love to have an opportunity to make fun of him, and by extension all Conservatives and Christians, on their silly shows.  A reality show following someone who wants to join his church?  hmmmm.....he would probably nix the idea because he wouldn't be in control of the content.

He will probably use any TV appearances as teases for an upcoming book on the experience, and won't divulge any actual details of his conversations with the FBI on the air.

Did they treat him to a multimedia reenactment of Waco and Ruby Ridge?

They could always threaten to send in Janet Reno  ;-)

[TigersEye]

Would the media be responsible if they ignored statements made by a top general, the State Dept., the Attorney General and the POTUS?

Who made this international news?

[CanaGuy]

You just know that out of 6 billion people on the planet, and the intensive news coverage, that there will be some Korans burned on Saturday. This pastor lit the fuse and it’s going to happen, somewhere, guaranteed.

[Stoat]

How is this possibly the media’s fault? People in Afghanistan are very tuned in to small churches in Florida with a couple dozen members.

And Pakistan, and every other Islamic hellhole on Earth as well.

The people whom we are told are utterly destitute and living in terrible conditions all seem to have high-def news feeds and broadband.

 

A Pakistani protester shouts slogans during a rally in reaction to a small American church's plan to burn copies of the Quran in Multan, Pakistan on Thursday, Sept. 9, 2010

 

[Georgia Girl 2]

How about they criminally created it. And lets not leave out Fox News either. Shep Smith was doing his dead level best to smear the little Gainesville church and their pastor tonight. What a crock!!

[GoCards]

Awww... Shep Smith, we can always count on him... Media has no idea how back asswards they are. Who do they think they are talking too exactly?

[Stoat]

You just know that out of 6 billion people on the planet, and the intensive news coverage, that there will be some Korans burned on Saturday. This pastor lit the fuse and it’s going to happen, somewhere, guaranteed.

Indeed they will.  The Westboro "Baptist Church" indicated such intentions a week ago, and I read a report of at least one small church doing the same earlier today.

It might be a good idea for Christians to postpone any scheduled vacations in Indonesia over the 9/11 weekend.

[bicyclerepair]

Those who worship moe ham ed, the pedophile, offend me.

[Stoat]

I believe the media has blood on their hands. THere is no condemnation over flag burning this evening either.

Would it be terribly far fetched to guess that many overseas 'reporters' bring along satchels full of American flags, flasks of gasoline and matches which they hand out to the locals who don't have the 'proper equipment' for their 'impromptu protests' which the camera crew is just 'so lucky' to 'accidentally' happen upon?

Gotta be able to justify that expense account tab to the network, and an angry, anti-American protest complete with burning flags will make any Leftist producer back home beam with pride......

[Eye of Unk]

Wait until they do a complete and total blackout on the event, and that includes a DOS attack on FR, Facebook, Youtube and Twitter have “issues”.

Obama will order it I’m sure, its gotten too big to stop, the whole nation can see Obama unraveling on this issue.

[dfwgator]

They weren’t negligent, they knew exactly what they were doing.

[Stoat]

Absolutely. This guy should never have been local news let alone a national or world story.

The media *wants* trouble, every single one of them.

"If it bleeds, it leads" as they say, and the past few 9/11 anniversaries have been terribly quiet, if my memory serves.  Can't be good for ratings.

Who is it that helps these people in tiny, dirt-poor Afghan, Pakistani or Indonesian villages make these big, professionally-lettered protest placards featuring English with perfect grammar?

Who supplies them with big American flags?  Is that something that is sold in the local street bazaar, alongside the dried camel effluvia?

I live in a HUGE American city that sells 'pretty much' anything I want, and I would be hard-pressed to find a store that sells a GIANT flag of Pakistan or Indonesia.

 

[Stoat]

They weren’t negligent, they knew exactly what they were doing.

I suppose that it's been since Vietnam that the media has intentionally slanted and pushed specific events as 'news', even if it means dead Americans.  Ratings, ad revenue and ideology is everything for them.  Patriotism and journalistic ethics?  That's for suckers and dummies.

How many of our brave soldiers have needlessly died or been horribly maimed because the media has either manufactured or slanted events that a reporter with an ounce of decency would have passed over because it wasn't truly important and would have been forgotten with no consequences if it had been left alone?