Sunday, June 04, 2006

A question for Reuters and the New York Times

Brendan Loy at Irish Trojan notes Reuters’ initial account of the arrests of the terror suspects in Canada made no mention that all the men involved were Muslims. Reuters later added they were “al-Qaeda inspired” but only after CNN had reported that.

As for the NY Times, Cori Dauber at Ranting Profs reports:
It is not until the 17th paragraph (which is on the second computer screen, if you're reading online) of the Times piece that you find confirmation that yesterday's raid in Toronto had something to do with Muslims or al Qaeda-oriented ideology.
Loy and Dauber both make the vital point. Here’s how Dauber puts it:
This isn't about being anti-Muslim, or anti-Islam, this is about the fact that this was motivated by a very specific ideology, and it can't be understood outside of that context.

To attempt to neuter this news requires stripping out that context, and doing so requires leaving the reader so ill-informed as to leave them mis-informed.
A question for Reuters and the NY Times: How would you have reported if one of those arrested had been a former Duke Men’s lacrosse player?
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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:19 PM

    All tha my local rag reprinted was an AP story that represented them as "South Asian." But with no names given.

    Unlike the Duke LAX players these terrorists are to remain anonymous, in Durham at least.

    And unlike Duke's "culture of problems" the Islamic religion is to be without facilty and "community activist" groups probing it's behavior.

    Riiiiight.

    -AC

    ReplyDelete
  2. JWM11:57 PM

    AC,

    I'll bet your "local rag" had something to do with your searching out information on the Internet.

    Will MSM ever learn?

    Thank you.

    John

    ReplyDelete