Newsbusters praise ABC News for getting Ft. Hood shooting report wrong
November 06, 2009 11:31 am ET by Eric Boehlert
Newsbusters' Brent Baker was incensed that some news outlets, just hours after yesterday's hand gun massacre, failed to emphasize that the shooter was Muslim. But note the accolades Baker tossed ABC News' way [emphasis added]:
Neither the CBS Evening News nor NBC Nightly News, in their East coast feeds Thursday night, noted the Muslim religious beliefs of the mass killer at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas, but ABC anchor Charles Gibson wasn't cowed by political correctness as he teased World News, “Fort Hood tragedy: An Army officer, a Muslim convert, is the suspect in a shooting spree...” Introducing his first story, Gibson referred to how Major Nidal Malik Hasan “an army officer, a Muslim, opened fire with handguns...” (With a range of frequency, during late afternoon/early evening coverage, CNN, FNC and MSNBC all identified Hasan as a Muslim.)
Slightly ironic, no? The fact that Gibson got the story wrong (Hasan, according to his cousin, is not "a Muslim convert") didn't bother media critic Baker. In fact, Baker toasted Gibson for getting the story wrong.
And right-wing media critics wonder why nobody takes them seriously.
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"Charles Gibson wasn't cowed by correctness as he teased World News [...]"
But what the hell are these people talking about, PC and all that...
Was there a SINGLE news outlet that DIDN'T report that the shooter was SOME MANNER of muslim? The very first story I heard had that info in it.
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Whats wrong with these idiots?!
If it's a choice, it's a lot easier to say that it's inherently bad. If you're born with it, it's much harder to say that it's inherently bad.
I also think it's related to the idea that if you're born with it, it's a passive thing. Like being born in Afghanistan, or being born Muslim. If you chose it later in life, if you choose to be a terrorist, or if you choose to be Muslim, then you're choosing is an active thing. You're more likely to be an ardent follower, an evangelist.
That's related to any choices one makes. Do you know any people who have never smoked in their lives who are as ardent and vociferous as many non-smokers who are also ex-smokers. Man, ex-smokers can be real pains in the ass and can lecture and proslyetize with the best religious fanatics!
Anyway, that's my take.
As the story was unfolding I surfed CNN,MSNBC and FOX. I have to say that I was very impressed with Fox's Shepard Smith (who else?). He was hands down the best of the three. I also noted that while the other two channels had released the Muslim sounding name of the shooter, Shepard Smith refused to do so, hinting that he did not want to release a Muslim name without comfirmation from Ft Hood officials. I thought he was showing some sensitivity in refusing to get that inflammatory detail wrong. He got the interview with Hasan's cousin and his questioning was thorough, illiciting important details that minimized initial over-reactions and typical speculations one would expect about the the Muslim connection. Smith eatablished early on that Hasan was native born and had several personal issues that would lead subsequent reporting away from terrorist connections as a motive for the attacks.
I still despise Fox News, but I am saluting Smith, not shilling for Fox.
All of the other stuff you wrote is pure speculation. If he blogged about this so much, where are his blogs? Where are the links to his blogs?
He was definitely mentally deranged for certain. Was he a Muslim also? Yes, he was. But everytime someone commits a crime that is a Christian, funny how we don't mention that they were a Christian Murderer now do we?
Settle down Francis. This is a tragic and isolated incident.
His belief was that he shouldn't have to fight against Muslims if the war was a war on Islam. And he believed that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were wars on Islam.
I don't think the wars were.
Soldiers don't get to say "I'll fight War A but not War B". Most wars our nation has been in have been wars between mostly Christians in the USA against mostly Christians in other places, but you don't see Christian soldiers saying that they can't go to war against other Christians!
And when you read the accounts of people who knew him, you discover that as a 39 yr old man, he hadn't met any woman, apparently, who had ever really appealed to him, despite trying some Muslim dating services a couple of years in a row. He hadn't gotten along with his co-workers. He had tried to get out of the Army, and they had denied his request, but he hadn't given up, even after he knew his efforts were futile. He wanted to commit suicide - he gave away all of his belongings before heading to Fort Hood Thursday morning.
He was a sick puppy, and I doubt his muslim religion had a lot to do with it - I think it's the man, not the religion, and he used the religion to stoke the fires raging inside.
Before Oct. 16, 1991, the Central Texas town of Killeen was perhaps best known for its proximity to the Army base at Fort Hood, and Luby's was known only regionally as a popular cafeteria chain that served a wide variety of inexpensive dishes.
But on that day, both came to be linked to what was then the worst mass murder in U.S. history.
At 12:45 p.m., 35-year-old George Hennard of nearby Belton drove his pickup truck through a window at the Killeen Luby's and killed 24 people.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/first100/1001214.html