About us Login Get email updates
County Fair
Print

Reporting the Newsbusters way: Verdict first, facts later -- and hold the balance

November 11, 2009 11:17 am ET by Jamison Foser

Newsbusters' Carolyn Plocher thinks the broadcast news networks should have been quicker to suggest a religious motivation for last week's Ft. Hood shootings.  And that's not all -- she's also upset that half of the news broadcasts that did bring up the shooter's religion "included a defense of the Islamic religion":

Until then, the broadcast networks had also downplayed his Islamic connections. From Nov. 5 through Nov. 10, all three evening news programs only identified Hasan as a Muslim one-fourth of the time (14 times out of 48 reports). And out of those 14 times, seven included a defense of the Islamic religion and expressed concern about a "possible backlash against Muslims in the military."

So Plocher's ideal news report would have immediately blamed an entire religion for the Ft. Hood shootings, and omitted any indication that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are peaceful.  She doesn't want the broadcast nets to practice journalism; she wants them to wage a campaign against a religion.

Expand All Expand 1st Level Collapse All Add Comment
    • Author by DellDolly (November 11, 2009 11:31 am ET)
      3  
      Well, of course she wants a war waged against the Muslims. They have to have us fearing something. They can't win unless they have the populace running scared and not thinking straight!

      And we know the methods of Newsbusters as compared to MMFA. They try to divine intent. They assign motives and allege bias. MMFA doesn't. That's why MMFA doesn't say that people lie, because that implies that MMFA knows the motives and intentions of the people who say falsehoods. Now, you and I know that for the most part, they aren't innocent mistakes or simple ignorance - it's dishonesty, but MMFA tries to stay away from making that determination. They don't allege bias or try to report on someone's unvoiced intentions.
      Report Abuse
    • Author by Palrh (November 11, 2009 1:47 pm ET)
         
      I don't understand!!! You hear about acts of violence, in the name of Islam, everyday! Then, a Muslim terrorist guns down over 30 people in Texas and people worry about other Muslims!!! Our own president won't even say the word terrorist. He goes on an apology tour to all Muslim countries... He selects a legal defender of terrorists to be our Attorney General... This same person, Eric Holder, then goes on to try and discredit our CIA, which tries to keep us safe from these very same Muslim terrorists... The president orders his administration not to call a terrorist a terrorist! Our Homeland Security director rushes to assure Muslim countries that we are working hard to ensure that there won't be a backlash against Muslims, instead of assuring the American population that they are working hard to ensure another terrorist attack doesn't happen here!!!! One of B.O.'s priorities is to close GITMO, where we send terrorists. Now, these prisoners are provided with Qur'ans and allowed to pray five times a day, when they perpetrated their violence in the name of the very same religion??? Now, we even read Miranda rights to captured enemy Muslim combatants! I don't understand!!!

      Whose side is our president on????

      Would you please...? Take the time to read the Qur'an yourself! Learn who the enemies to Islam are, who the non-believers are, what is allowed to convert them to Islam, what awaits someone who dies in the name of Islam... The Qur'an is so violent as to be almost non-believable!!!

      The truth is that we are the enemy of Islam, for many reasons, we are mostly a Christian country, but as a society our values are completely different than those taught by the Qur'an (We are referred to as the Great Satan). We support Israel, their sworn enemy. We fight Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan and even though we defeated a dictator and liberated the people in one case and tried to root out terrorists in the other, we still support democratically elected governments in those countries, not a religious one. I'm afraid that the only way we could reverse this course, would be to change the whole fabric of our country. That is, submit to Islam and Allah, institute Sharia law, give up our wealth, and give up our freedoms, especially the ones that our liberals find so dear!

      The goal of Islam is the world domination of their religion! Read the Qur'an yourself... It is perfectly acceptable, even a duty in the Qur'an to convert people to Islam using violence. This conflict has been going on for centuries! Study the history yourself!

      Don't you ever wonder why you don't get more outrage from the Muslim world when there is a terrorist attack here? Don't you wonder why you can hear about some kind of violence, in the name of Islam, in the news every single day? Don't you wonder why whole countries cheer when something bad happens to America? Have you not seen what is going on with C.A.I.R right now, the largest Muslim group in America? How many ties to radical Islam they have... How they say one thing in public trying to deceive us, then saying and doing another in private... How they always come to the defense of radical Islamics here!

      There are peaceful Muslims... These are the ones who aren't religious and don't really know what the Qur'an says, are able to ignore large sections of their religion or somehow convince themselves that the Qur'an can't actually mean these things...

      Please find out for yourself!!! Read the Qur'an, study history, and find out what is really going on... In the mean time, stop helping them!!!

      Wake up America!!!

      Report Abuse
      • Author by steeve (November 12, 2009 12:43 am ET)
        1  
        Do you ever wonder why there isn't a Muslim terrorist attack on American soil ten times a day, every day?

        If I didn't know better, I'd say that well over 99% of the Muslims here aren't interested in world domination. So it just feels like it's playing the odds that when you see a Muslim, they just might be one of the don't-give-a-crap-about-world-domination types.

        In a not-too-indirect way, the Koran states that there are ten terrorist attacks on American soil every single day. But there aren't. Yeah, I'm puzzled too.
        Report Abuse
    • Author by paul8616 (November 11, 2009 7:27 pm ET)
      1  
      This is classic right-wing narcissism. CLEARLY (ahem) since the media didn't portray Hasan as an eevil Muslim terrorist somethingorother, the media is liberal. And CLEARLY (ahem) since the media is liberal, they'll portray him in a neutral way, in order to mislead Americans about the Real Threat That Faces Us All (or something). And CLEARLY (ahem) that means only right-wing bloggers can identify the Real Threat That Faces Us All. Which means that CLEARLY (ahem) when the right-wingers are inevitably criticized and mocked by people like MMfA, those right-wingers can feel good about their own irresponsibility because after all: They are our saviors. Even though they know they'll fail. Because the media. Is liberal. And stuff.
      Report Abuse
    • Author by ProgLib (November 12, 2009 8:38 pm ET)
         
      newsbusters is never concerned about getting all, if any, of the facts in before they make a quick, blind judgment about the entire muslim religion.
      Report Abuse

my.MediaMatters.org

Login  Sign Up

About the Blog

Feed Icon
  • County Fair is a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the Web as well as original commentary, breaking news and rapid response updates to major media events from Media Matters senior fellows and other staff.