Ugly ethnic profiling tarred Ft. Hood coverage

[Newsjock]

Source: Reflections of a Newsosaur

The news media succumbed to ugly ethnic and religious profiling in their coverage of the shooting last week at Fort Hood. Shame on them.

... The most distressing consequence of the misguided early coverage is that the shootings were portrayed as an act of organized Islamic terrorism.

This spin was en easy leap from the ethnicity and religion of the suspect, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an American-born Muslim whose parents emigrated from Palestine. But it was as inflammatory as it was dead wrong.

Even after the early misinformation was cleared up, the Islamic terror angle lived on into the weekend, and there probably are still many Americans who believe to this moment that the event indeed was a terror attack.

... It was completely appropriate for the Times and other media to inquire into whether the shooting was motivated by something other than the assailant’s private demons. But ask yourself this:

Would the Times or any other responsible news organizations have pursued the Islamic-terror story line this vigorously for so many days if the shooter had been a white Christian of English extraction who was born in the United States?

Read more: http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2009/11/ugly-ethnic-profiling-tarred-ft-hood.html

[Scurrilous]

1. K & R

:thumbsup:

[janet118]

2. For instance in the assassination of Dr. Tiller at his church . . .

Did the MS media speculate endlessly about what terrorist groups, TV ayatollahs or ethnic/religious affiliations might have been behind Scott Roeder's cold blooded murder of George Tiller? Not so much.