Rather inflamatory NPR report about Major Hasan

[Kablooie]

Daniel Zwerdling:

Earlier today, I spoke to a psychiatrist who worked very closely with Hasan and knows him very well. And he said, you know, from the beginning -and Hasan was there for four years (The conversation is about Walter Reed Hospital) - the medical staff was very worried about this guy. He said the first thing is he's cold, unfriendly. At least that's who he came off. He did not do a good job as a psychiatrist in training, was repeatedly warned, you better shape up, or, you know, you're going to be in trouble. Did badly in his classes, seemed disinterested. But second of all - and this is, perhaps, you know, more relevant. The psychiatrist says that he was very proud and upfront about being Muslim. And psychiatrist hastened to say, and nobody minded that. But he seemed almost belligerent about being Muslim, and he gave a lecture one day that really freaked a lot of doctors out.

They have grand rounds, right? They, you know, dozens of medical staff come into an auditorium, and somebody stands at the podium at the front and gives a lecture about some academic issue, you know, what drugs to prescribe for what condition. But instead of that, he - Hasan apparently gave a long lecture on the Koran and talked about how if you don't believe, you are condemned to hell. Your head is cut off. You're set on fire. Burning oil is burned down your throat.

And I said to the psychiatrist, but this could be a very interesting informational session, right? Where he's educating everybody about the Koran. He said but what disturbed everybody was that Hasan seemed to believe these things. And actually, a Muslim in the audience, a psychiatrist, raised his hand and said, excuse me. But I'm a Muslim and I do not believe these things in the Koran, and then I don't believe what you say the Koran says. And then Hasan didn't say, well, I'm just giving you one point of view. He basically just stared the guy down.

STEVE INSKEEP:
So we have a picture of a man, then, who, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, was disliked by his colleagues. Or maybe disliked is not the word. Disturbed some of his colleagues is perhaps a better way to put it.

ZWERDLING:
No, and disliked is also a relevant word.

INSKEEP:
OK. And then

ZWERDLING:
Then he - the psychiatrist this morning said people generally considered him a blank bag. You, you know, can guess what they say.

------

I'm surprised that NPR would report something like this based only on one individual's opinion.
We know nothing about this anonymous psychiatrist.
He could have a personal beef with Hasan and is trying to frame him in a one dimensional, stereotypical way. He could be a Fox News teabagger for all we know.

[DebbieCDC]

1. I heard this when it aired today

Very slanted take I believe, before many/any of the facts are known about the backstory to this terrible event.

But NPR is going further to the right all the time -- that they continue to employ Juan Williams and Cokie Roberts is proof enough. NPR isn't what it used to be, so this story today does not surprise me at all.

[slackmaster]

2. That one individual happens to be a psychiatrist and a colleague of Hasan

He's an authoritative observer.

[Kablooie]

3. But he may not be an impartial observer.

[kestrel91316]

Do you have evidence that he ISN'T impartial? He's a PROFESSIONAL.

[EFerrari]

18. Yeah, he's one of the professionals you were slamming yesterday.

[slackmaster]

11. Are you suggesting the interview shouldn't have been aired because of that possibility?

If news organizations worked that way, they'd never be able to publish anything until it was stale.

[msanthrope]

25. No observer is impartial. The trick is knowing if their biases

override anything they have to say on the matter.

[virgogal]

8. And if this was done in a lecture hall with a group of attendees I'm sure

that there are others that can confirm this story.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

4. I didn't hear this report, but if it's true about the lecture, it's bizarre as hell.

Grand Rounds are lectures about medical topics. Religious dogma has no place. Any religion. If he gave a lecture like that it's bizarre and out of line.

[The_Casual_Observer]

5. It pretty much worked out that Hasan was a crazy nut didn't it?

Is there some dispute about it or would you consider it reasonable behavior?

[snagglepuss]

6. ITs damning that for sure not only about Hasan about about his med school.

He never should have been promoted. His lecture about non-believers burning in hell after being beheaded should have been grounds to kick him out of med school.

[MindandSoul]

7. Unprofessional!

Yes, it doesn't amaze me that people are crawling out of the wood work to bury this guy!. . .But it is unfair for a news station like NPR to just take these statements without doing some background research.

I am certainly not trying to defend the killer, but. . .I don't think his action had anything to do with terrorism, and everything to do with an unstable mental health, and the "muslim bashing" added to all the horror stories his clients brought back from the war!
He just flipped. . .and I am afraid that, the 12 people who died were not the only victims! I am afraid that every Muslim in United States, especially every Muslim in the military will suffer the backlash of this unstable psychiatrist's action!

This is very sad all around. . .and we don't need the "Friends" or "colleagues" to come publicly forward and offer their point of views that will continue to inflame this issue.
Can't we wait for the official investigation???

[snagglepuss]

10. You're the one with the knee jerk reaction and shooting from the hip without facts.

One of the journalists you are so quick to dismiss as a right wing hack worked for 2 years with Bill Moyers and has won the most prestigious awards in broadcasting,

The awards he has won include the "DuPont, Peabody, Edward R. Murrow, the Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Robert F. Kennedy awards for investigative reporting. He's also won the Overseas Press Club Foundation award for live coverage of breaking international news, the American Association for the Advancement of Science Journalism Award, the National Press Club Award for consumer reporting, the Ohio State awards for international reporting, the James Beard award for reporting on the food industry, and the Champion-Tuck Award for economic reporting.

snip


Zwerdling has served as an adjunct professor of Media Ethics in the communications department at American University in Washington, D.C., and as an associate of the Bard College Institute for Language and Thinking in New York. His book, Workplace Democracy (Harper & Row, 1980), is still used in colleges across the country.



http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4173096




http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4173096

[Kablooie]

20. I know Zwerdling is a respected journalist. I've heard his reports for years.

This may well play out to be fully verified in which case it should be reported.

It's just the way he expressed it, especially when jihadish accusations can be dangerous to other US Muslims, it sounded like it might have been released a little prematurely without more verification.

[snagglepuss]

21. A journalist who excels in his craft does not make unsubstantiated claims.

Someone of his caliber doesn't make things up. You may not feel comfortable with what he is reporting but his job is to report facts and not to comfort people.

[KittyWampus]

9. It sounds more like the actual FACTS about the major turn out to be somewhat inflammatory

Yes, NPR drifted rightward.

But the report as mentioned in the OP sounds like actual reporting of actual facts.

[demosincebirth]

15. Telling the facts means you dfift rightward??

[Dreamer Tatum]

16. Only when they're inconvenient. nt

[snagglepuss]

17. You certainly are wedded to the facts. Not.

Not only did Zwerdling work 2 years with Bill Moyers but he has received journalism's most prestigious awards

The awards he has won include the "DuPont, Peabody, Edward R. Murrow, the Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Robert F. Kennedy awards for investigative reporting. He's also won the Overseas Press Club Foundation award for live coverage of breaking international news, the American Association for the Advancement of Science Journalism Award, the National Press Club Award for consumer reporting, the Ohio State awards for international reporting, the James Beard award for reporting on the food industry, and the Champion-Tuck Award for economic reporting.

snip


Zwerdling has served as an adjunct professor of Media Ethics in the communications department at American University in Washington, D.C., and as an associate of the Bard College Institute for Language and Thinking in New York. His book, Workplace Democracy (Harper & Row, 1980), is still used in colleges across the country.



http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=41...


I suggest before to attempt to smear a journalist you should have some facts to back up your smear.

[EFerrari]

12. If this man was so out there, it doesn't speak well to his peers

let alone supervisors. Good gawd. Four years and nobody did anything?

Maybe more info is still coming. :(

/bad typing friday

[Bobbieo]

14. Accept it!!!! Hasan is a fucking fruitcake like Limbaugh and Brent.

[EFerrari]

19. I really don't know how to respond to that, Bobbie.

:)

[geckosfeet]

13. They also aired the general saying the it was possible that someone heard

him shouting Allah akbar or whatever the fuck it is that means god is great.

A general. In the US army. Fomenting islamophobia by spreading hearsay and innuendo. And NPR is more than happy to help out.

[Sezu]

22. "Inflammatory?" Concerning a mass murderer?

Sounds kinda oxymoronic.

[Kablooie]

24. Not the murders themselves but the suggestion of the REASONS for the murders.

[voc]

23. NPR is to the right and

the doc may be right as well. Doesn't matter if it is accurate or not. People will believe what
works for their ideology.

[Liquorice]

26. Would you think this story was inflammatory if Hasan had been a

crazy right-wing Christian nut who was spouting crazy right-wing Christian nonsense before becoming totally unhinged and murdering people? I think it's pretty clear at this point that Hasan is one of those lunatics who gets all crazy into religion--there are a lot of them and they can spring from any religious background. Hasan is just the Muslim version. That's just the way it is. In an article I just read, it said Hasan was going around giving people he knew copies of the Koran right before he went on his shooting spree.

[renate]

27. thank you for saving me the time and trouble of writing that

:thumbsup:

I dislike Muslim fundamentalism just as much as I dislike fundamentalism of any other kind... by "fundamentalism" I mean the kind of self-righteousness that leads a person to think he has the right to harm others because they are not like him.

I am most definitely concerned for the effect of this attack on Muslims who have no more interest in harming others than you or I--and that would be 99.999% of Muslims, give or take, just like most Christians would never harm someone with whom they disagreed. But bending over backwards to conceal the possible, and at this point highly possible, effect of his religion on his actions is taking political correctness to an absurd level.

We don't cut the murderer of George Tiller one bit of slack because of fundamentalist Christianity, and rightly so. It's just silly to be more harsh on Christian fundamentalists than on any other fundamentalists who FRICKIN' KILL PEOPLE.

I'm no more likely to look on the families of my daughter's three best friends, who all happen to be Muslim, with any more suspicion than I was before last week. That's because they aren't going to hurt anybody. But it sure looks like this one guy's religious fundamentalism had something to do with his meltdown.

[smalll]

28. The dude shouted "Allahu Akbar" as he opened fire. Cut your losses on this one, seriously. /nt

[proteus_lives]

29. You call a mass murderer "Major" and the other guy a "Fox News Teabagger."

Wow.

Why are people trying to soften what that asshole did?

[TorchTheWitch]

30. because they don't want to believe he's a Muslim fundy

If he was a Christian fundy it would be perfectly acceptable to trash him up one side and down the other, but because he's a Muslim fundy he gets a pass.

I understand the fear that average perfectly normal Muslims will get a lot of backlash because of this and the fear that it will instigate more war support, but the hoop jumping to defend this guy is nauseating.

[proteus_lives]

32. You nailed it.

And you're right, it is nauseating.

[etherealtruth]

31. This piece certainly gives the impression that Hasan was not a stable man ....

.... oh, wait .... as it turns out, Hasan committed mass murder.

If I recall correctly, the murdering rapist in the news lately, was portrayed as "kinda scary crazy," by neighbors and acquaintances, as well.

On edit: One must also note that a reported Muslim colleague attending the referenced lecture ... pointed out that he was a muslim and did NOT believe what Hasan was spouting. the piece is a portrait of an unstable man .... a man that committed mass murder.

[northernlights]

33. If this is so, then how the hell did he get through med school?

Why was he not dumped long ago?

[mainer]

34. His being a mass murderer has nothing to be with his being Muslim

It's just the way his underlying sociopathy was expressed. He could have been a Christian or a Hindu (and mass murderers have come from those religions too), but this guy just happened to be Muslim.