Posted on 08/09/2014 5:56:29 AM PDT by markomalley
The Big Three networks steered clear of labeling the Islamist group ISIS "terrorists" on their evening newscasts on Friday. Instead, ABC's World News and CBS Evening News labeled the genocidal radicals "militants." NBC Nightly News used the more benign "rebels" in their coverage of the group's latest attacks on the Kurdish part of Iraq.
The closest that a journalist at ABC, CBS, or NBC got to using the "terrorist" label was Scott Pelley's teaser at the very top of CBS Evening News: [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]
(video at link)
SCOTT PELLEY (teaser): Tonight, back in battle: The President orders U.S. warplanes to attack Sunni Muslim extremists in northern Iraq to stop a campaign of terror. But he makes Americans this promise:
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I will not allow the United States to be dragged into fighting another war in Iraq.
Brian Williams introduced correspondent Jim Miklaszewski's report on NBC Nightly News by noting that "a violent group called ISIS has swept across Iraq. They have civilians and religious minorities on the run, and threatened with death." Miklaszewski twice referred to ISIS as "rebels" during the segment. He did include a clip of President Obama using the "terrorist" label in reference to the group:
JIM MIKLASZEWSKI: ...In his nationwide address Thursday night, President Obama said the airstrikes are necessary to protect American lives at the U.S. consulate in Erbil.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I've directed our military to take targeted strikes against ISIL terrorist convoys should they move toward the city.
MIKLASZEWSKI: The airstrikes are also aimed at supporting Kurdish Peshmerga fighters U.S. allies overrun by ISIS rebels this week. President Obama cautioned, however, any U.S. airstrikes would be limited. Critics accuse the President of playing domestic politics, and that limited airstrikes will do little to stop the relentless advance of ISIS rebels.
The NBC journalist later underlined that "ISIS...has seized a large section of east and northern Iraq, with unspeakable brutality that includes mass executions and beheadings."
On World News, ABC correspondent Martha Raddatz repeatedly used the "militant" term during her report on the U.S. airstrikes against the Islamists:
MARTHA RADDATZ: Good evening, David. The U.S. military now has a green light to launch airstrikes as needed in Iraq today, pounding multiple targets, trying to stop the militants from advancing and from threatening American lives and the lives of thousands of Iraqi families trapped on that mountain.
The first strike...two heavily-armed F-18 fighter jets launching from the carrier U.S.S. Bush in the Persian Gulf roaring high above northern Iraq, where ISIS militants were at work shelling forces trying to defend the critical city of Erbil....Then, four hours later...an armed drone launching a Hellfire missile at a mortar position. When militant fighters returned to the site, the drone struck again. 6:20 P.M., four more F-18s, targeting a seven-vehicle militant convoy the Pentagon says a total of eight bombs dropped neutralizing the convoy and a mortar launcher....
Meanwhile, that other mission: to save lives on that mile-high mountain. At the top: tens of thousands of members of a religious minority trapped for days by the ISIS militants, threatening them with death.
Journalist David Martin used the same labeling during his report on CBS Evening News:
DAVID MARTIN: ...Five hundred-pound laser-guided bombs hit a field gun Islamic militants were using to shell the city of Erbil in northern Iraq, where scores of American military personnel and diplomats are based. The F-18 jet fighters, which dropped the bombs, returned to the carrier George H.W. Bush in the Persian Gulf. Later in the day, U.S. aircraft carried out two more strikes against militant forces on the outskirts of Erbil....
The militants are known as ISIS, but are, in essence, the successors to al Qaeda in Iraq, and they have caught everyone by surprise with the effectiveness of their attacks and swiftness of their advance. Tens of thousands of civilians have fled their homes, and the Pentagon now estimates 35,000 are stranded on a mountain surrounded by militant fighters....Getting the refugees off the mountain could require more U.S. airstrikes to help Iraqi or Kurdish forces establish a safe passage corridor through militant lines.
CBS correspondent Holly Williams then followed Martin, and used the same "militant" term. However, she included a detail often omitted by the Big Three networks: the fact that ISIS is also targeting Iraqi Christians for persecution.
HOLLY WILLIAMS (voice-over): ISIS is on Erbil's doorstep, as the militants extend the boundaries of what they call their own Islamic state. Erbil is a Kurdish stronghold, and Kurdish soldiers are the only ones still fighting ISIS on the ground in northern Iraq, after the Iraqi army ran away two months ago. But ISIS launched a new offensive this week, sending tens of thousands of people fleeing for their lives, many of them religious minorities include Yazidis and Christians.
Yesterday, Kurdish fighters helped some Yazidi families escape the barren mountaintop where they've taken refuge from ISIS. Many say they were given a stark choice by the militants: convert to their strict version of Sunni Islam, leave their homes, or face death....
SCOTT PELLEY (live): Holly's joining us now. Holly, what's it like in Erbil tonight? Is there panic?
WILLIAMS: Well, Scott, people here tell us that two days ago, there was panic, in the sense that Erbil might soon fall to ISIS. Some people even fled the city. But now, people here seem to be more relaxed and even hopeful because they think that the U.S. airstrikes will give the Kurdish fighters the time and space they need to regroup, and then, push the militants back.
On Thursday, the MRC's Dan Gainor pointed out that the Big Three networks have followed a simple pattern with regard to the Islamic extremist group Hamas: "ABC, CBS and NBC journalists referred to Hamas as 'militants,' 'fighters' or 'soldiers' 13 times more often than they called them 'terrorists.' (65 stories to 5 stories.)"
Perhaps the big 3 networks need to be provided with video and pictures of the barbarism the “rebels and militants” are treating innocent people to.
I wouldn’t even call them “terrorists”.
I would call them what they are.
Mohammedans.
They already have it.
You remember the Darryl Worley song, Have you Forgotten?
They took all the footage off my T.V.
Said it's too disturbing for you and me
It'll just breed anger that's what the experts say
If it was up to me I'd show it everyday…
Terrorist-network NBC is sooo proterrorist
that they will not report from Israel.
Every night, their bias is solely declared ... for Hamas.
After the VC in Vietnam had whacked the vaccinated arms of peasants a Green Beret asked a news cameraman why he wasn’t shooting film to record this barbaric act. The cameraman said, “I’m not here to provide propaganda for you. I’m here to support the people.”
Perhaps when the cameramen and news people at the alphabet networks are forced to kneel in the street for their coup de grace they’ll finally get it.
This young lady is a Rebel.
And, were I much, much younger, she could recruit me to her cause.
They call them militants because they support them. Yes, that is how effed up liberal are. Nothing new about that.
They’ll kneel. Of that I am 100% positive.
They’re going generic because they don’t know yet which one Obama will side with.
“ISIS rebels”
How screwed up in the head do you have to be to call them that? Just what are they rebelling against sir? Oh that’s right, generally everybody who is alive and isn’t Muslim. I just saw a video last night where they told a man to renounce Christ or they would behead him. He then renounced Christ and they beheaded him anyway. Yes, that is certainly “rebellious” about them isn’t it.
The Current FReepathon Pays For The Current Quarters Expenses?
Might I suggest we refer to them as Mohammedan Terrorists...therefore cementing the two seemingly seperate concepts .
I disagree, because Mohammedanism IS Terrorism.
The Q’uran specifically instructs Mohammedans to instill terror in the hearts of non-Moslems and to convert, enslave, or kill them throughout the whole world.
We won the war on terror. Ø said so.
So of course there are no more terrorists. /sarc
Look at his recent speeches and the implicit respect he accords them and the formal way he speaks about them.
Obama is paving the way to formally recognize ISIL as the legitimate government of a legitimate new Arab state, the Caliphate of the Levant.
Referring to ISIL as a terrorist organization would complicate that recognition.
If Obama’s boys in Syria could not overthrow Assad and take over Syria as ISIS, they can seize poorly defended desert lands in Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon and become ISIL to start their own country.
It is a race to see which civilization ending event arrives here first: ISIS or EBOLA both under and with the blessing of our Muslim in Chief
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