JON SCOTT (HOST): While federal officials have so far been reluctant to categorize the shooting in San Bernardino, some media outlets not holding back whatsoever. The newsstand here in New York City, for example, had The [New York] Post blaming Islamic terror and the Daily News pointing a finger at Republicans and the NRA. Let's bring in Judith Miller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter, author and Fox News contributor, and Lynn Sweet, Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times. Little late for the morning headlines, Lynn, but Fox has confirmed that the wife in this massacre had been in touch with and had pledged allegiance to the leader of ISIS. Doesn't that make this Islamic terrorism?
LYNN SWEET: Well, let me cite Fox News analyst Frances Townsend who was on a little less than two hours ago who said that for government officials as opposed to journalists and just other people, the term 'terrorist' has a legal -- has a definition to it. And because this massacre occurred on the shooter's workplace, it creates another factor. I think in time you will have the wording that correctly describes it, so I would withhold judgment that anyone's trying to hold back anything. But I take to heart what Frances Townsend, who is an expert on this said, in explaining why there is reluctance to put the official government label yet on this as a terrorism act. Though certainly we know where this one is going.
SCOTT: All right. Judy, is there, I don't know, is there justification for that kind of reluctance on the part of the government?
JUDITH MILLER: [INAUDIBLE] Using the term 'terrorism,' which implies a political motive and agenda. But for journalists we are free to conclude anything we wish as the Daily News did when it blamed the people who are refusing to pass gun legislation for the outrage and as The Post did in blaming a Muslim terrorist.
