Last month, the Public Religion Research Institute and Religion News Service published a survey about Americans' views on issues surrounding Islam. One of the more interesting (but not surprising) findings was that there is a “significant correlation between trust in Fox News and negative attitudes about Muslims.”

Incidents like this go a long way towards explaining why this is the case.

Fox Nation's website is currently featuring the following story:

The New York Daily News article they link to makes absolutely no mention that the driver was a Muslim (and neither does the ABC News video they embed). Presumably, the Fox Nation writer saw that his name was Mohammed Azam and went ahead and made the leap.

Now, this is not to defend what the driver did in any way. If he did what he is accused of, he has very clearly broken the law. However, at least from the article Fox Nation links to, there is no indication that his religion had anything to do with his actions. According to the New York Daily News, he refused to take passengers from Manhattan to the Bronx, resulting in an argument and leading to the alleged hit-and-run.

The only reason Fox Nation leads the headline with the word “Muslim” is to stir up their bigoted commenters. Based on a quick check of their comments section, it's working.