On Nov. 18, Foreign Policy's Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson wrote an article titled "The Real Shock of Fort Hood." If you thought that the shock of Fort Hood was that an Army Major fired over 100 rounds into a crowded processing center on a military base - killing 13 and wounding 29 - you're wrong. "It's not that the massacre occurred," said the article. "It's that it hadn't occurred before."

According to Simon and Stevenson, Major Nidal Malik Hasan was simply another American Muslim that was the victim of "innumerable stresses, including discrimination and the strain of divided loyalties in their country's eight-year-long war against Muslims in the Middle East and Central Asia."  

The authors argued that such circumstances would be "enough to inspire conflict in the minds of even the most patriotic of American Muslims in the U.S." So much so that it should be "no surprise" that "one unstable member of this community finally erupted in violence."

It's our fault. Americans aren't making Muslims "comfortable." And the article specifically cited "Christian right-wing rhetoric" as a catalyst in the "Muslim alienation" which led to Hasan's shooting spree.

As reported on NewsBusters recently, the kill-joy food police are here just in time for the holidays.

 On Nov. 19 ABC's "Good Morning America" aired a recycled study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a liberal activist group that, if it were given the power, would ban everything from remote controls to Chinese food to donuts to casual dining. But even without that power, the anti-food activists still have the networks eating out of their hand.

For the third time in just two months, ABC's early morning show devoted an entire segment to a CSPI study. The past two studies reported that health labels were too "confusing" for consumers while "leafy greens" were life-threatening. Now CSPI's latest publication attacks movie theater popcorn.

On Nov. 19, Dan Gainor, Vice President of Business & Culture for the Media Research Center, appeared on FNC's "America's Newsroom" to debate with Julia Piscitelli, a Democratic Media Consultant, about how the media has treated Sarah Palin's new book.

Leave it to ABC and its obsession with alternate sexuality to characterize being a male or a female as a "difficult decision." Introducing an interview featuring Chastity (now Chaz) Bono on Nov. 19, "Good Morning America's" Diane Sawyer said, "There can be no decision that you make that is more complex and difficult than gender identification."

Bono explained the hardships of undergoing a sexual "transformation" and the "journey into manhood" to an extraordinarily sympathetic Chris Cuomo, saying, "Gender is between your ears, not between your legs."

This interview only adds to a long list that details ABC's fascination with the sexually bizarre. In July 2009, CMI released a study that found that ABC news programs had featured 76 segments about sexual activity in the past six months. Most of the reports related to political sex scandals or crime cases that contained a sexual element, but 11 promoted alternative sexual arrangements, such as gender changes and, even more disturbing, objectum sexualization - having romantic relationships with objects like F-15 fighter jets and the Eiffel Tower.

On Nov. 9, CW's "Gossip Girl" featured a threesome, which included the not-so-Disney-anymore Hilary Duff. The show depicted threesomes as a normal, expected event in a college student's life. But that wasn't crass enough for Entertainment Weekly's Tim Stack, who said that the threesome was too "chaste."

"It was basically no more risqué than a game of spin the bottle," Stack lamented.

After this week's episode, though, which featured graphic flashbacks of the threesome, Stack has declared that "Gossip Girl" is "back up the quality ladder."

"The flashbacks to the threesome were waaaay more hot than anything in last week's much-hyped episode," he said. "I wonder if the Parents Television Council tuned in last night."

Stack went on to say that "Gossip Girl not only entertains, it teaches."

"We also learned a much repeated rule of threesomes," he said. "The third person is always supposed to be a stranger!"

If you thought that you were going to escape being greenwashed by simply changing the channel for NBC's "Green Week," think again. Now you can't even wile away your time reading a good ol' fashioned thriller. Stephen King's new book, "Under the Dome," depicts a small city on the brink of an environmental disaster (that is, if it can survive the murders, arson, and corruption, of course).

Set in fictional Chester's Mill, Maine, the 1,000+ page tome (King's longest since "It") details the demise of a small town that mysteriously becomes stuck under an invisible, impenetrable dome.

The town faces such King clichés as deception, rape, and drug addiction, but it also discovers that it's on the fast track to environmental doom. The book review by Kevin Kelly of Mercury News describes the town's desperate situation.

"You can't see the dome - until it becomes smudged on the outside by the accumulation of smog and things running into it and leaving stains," he said. "With no steady influx of new air, Chester's Mill begins to smell like a locker room and plants start dying, and as the dome becomes more and more smeared with grime from the outside world, the temperature inside climbs."

Three years ago, NBC launched a holiday tradition of environmental awareness. In 2007, it kicked off its "Green Week" by turning off the lights during a Sunday sports broadcast (as if turning off studio lights for one minute could mitigate three hours of blazing stadium lights).

The rest of the week consisted of cringingly cheesy, greenwashed TV moments, like the cop on the crime drama Life buying a solar farm in his quest to find the person who framed him for murder.

Sadly, the line-up for this year's "Green Week," which launches Nov. 15, is just as cringe-worthy. Al Gore will appear again on "30 Rock," undoubtedly spewing dire warnings of the Earth's imminent doom. "The Biggest Loser" will coach its participants to buy organic food and bring their own mugs to coffee shops. Dwight Schrute from "The Office" will role play as a character named "Recyclops," and, in the comedy "Community," Greendale Community College will be renamed "Environ-Dale."

But that's not all.

On Nov. 9 CW's teen-targeted "Gossip Girl" featured a threesome, portraying it as a normal, expected event in a college student's life.

The episode depicted three friends completing a list that was supposedly printed in their college newspaper: "The 15 Things Every College Student Must Do Before Graduating." Number 11 was "Have a Threesome."

On Nov. 10, the day after the episode aired, Entertainment Weekly commented on the "Gossip Girl's" threesome, saying, "The whole thing was pretty chaste. Aside from a shot of them all in bed together in the end, it was basically no more risqué than a game of spin the bottle."

What Entertainment Weekly doesn't grasp (or perhaps doesn't want to) is that it's not about how graphic the scene was or wasn't. It's the fact that the show was promoting the idea as normal and even expected.

• Networks Decide Attack Wasn't Terror: 85 percent of the broadcast stories didn't mention the word "terror." ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news referenced terrorism connections to the Fort Hood attack just seven times in 48 reports.
• ABC, CBS, NBC Follow White House Line: Before Obama's Nov. 10 speech, 93 percent of the stories had ignored any terror connection. But after Obama hinted at what ABC called "Islamic extremist views," all three networks mentioned terrorism.
• Alleged Attacker's Muslim Faith Not Important Either: Slightly more than one-fourth (29 percent) of evening news reports mentioned that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was a Muslim. Of those, half (7 out of 14) defended the religion or included experts to do so.

Last week, Fort Hood, Texas was the site of the worst mass shooting in history on a U.S. military base. At 2:34 p.m. local time on Nov. 5, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan - one of the military's own - reportedly attacked fellow soldiers, yelling, "Allah Akbar." He then allegedly fired more than 100 rounds into Fort Hood's crowded processing center, killing 13 and wounding 29. This heinous act stunned the nation and captivated the news media.

Wonder why the White House attack on the Fox News Channel (you know: "not a news network") failed? Well, besides the fact that not even the other networks thought it was right, it might be because Fox often commits actual journalism.

Witness Bill O'Reilly's Nov. 6 interview with Scott Conroy and Shushannah Walshe, co-authors of the soon-to-be-released "Sarah from Alaska." During the interview, the authors insisted that it was "not a slam book at all." In fact, Conroy said that his "final conclusion" of Palin was that "she's always been underestimated" and to "write her off" would be a "big mistake." Walshe also implicitly blamed the media by saying that Palin's "three-dimensional character" was ignored during last year's presidential campaign and, instead, "she was perceived as either an idiot or she was loathed."

So why did Conroy and Walshe feel the need to defend the fairness of their book? Perhaps because the duo had appeared on CBS earlier that week, and "fair" isn't an adjective that comes to mind in describing that interview.

Business just can't win.

For years the environmentalists and their green-loving mainstream media allies have been slamming businesses for trashing the planet. Outlets ranging from television networks to magazines to newspapers have spearheaded an incessant "eco-friendly" campaign that has been so influential on consumers that some companies have gone into the red just to be green. But of course now that being green has actually become profitable, the media's criticizing the free market for "taking advantage of it."

On Nov. 5 "Good Morning America's" weatherman and eco-propagandist Sam Champion tsked, "In the past five years, there's been an explosion of products marketed as being green or good for the environment. But just how accurate are all of those claims? And are we really getting what we think we are? Well, the government now says, in some cases, we're not."

Less than 24 hours after Mainers rejected a state law allowing same-sex marriage, Time magazine rushed to comfort gay activists with Michael Lindenberger's sloppy, transparently biased article titled "Gay-Marriage Activists Look Ahead After Defeat in Maine."

With condescension reminiscent of Peter Jennings - in 1994 the ABC anchor characterized the Republican takeover of Congress as the electorate having a "temper tantrum" - Lindenberger portrayed same-sex marriage opponents as stubborn children, saying, "Maine voters insisted on having their say on an issue that simply will not go away." Rather than just report and analyze the outcome, the article simultaneously sympathized with gay activists and emphasized, by way of many pro-gay quotes, the futility of fighting against an "incredible campaign" that simply wants justice.

Maine defenders of traditional marriage only had one quote in the nearly 1,200-word article: "What's the hurry [for gay marriage]?" That's six words, if you count the brackets.

The article also reassured same-sex marriage proponents that this rejection will leave no lasting scars:

UPDATE: Not wanting to be left out of the Palin slamming scene, ABC's "Good Morning America" joined the fray on Nov. 4, interviewing the same people as CBS' "Early Show" and criticizing Palin on the same points. 

From accusing her of igniting a civil war within the Republican Party to calling her "nutty" antics a "treasure" to the Democrats, the mainstream media is once again shamelessly slamming Sarah Palin.  

On Nov. 3 CBS' "Early Show" interviewed Scott Conroy and Shushannah Walshe, co-authors of "Sarah from Alaska," a "very revealing" book about Palin on the campaign trail.

"Later this month, Palin's highly anticipated memoir hits bookstores," said CBS' Harry Smith. "But another book beats her to it."

To start off the interview, Smith asked Conroy (who, by the way, also works for CBS) to explain what was going on "behind the scenes" when John McCain gave his concession speech on Election Day last year.  

Conroy wasted no time painting Palin as a media hungry mongrel, saying:

Remember back in July when Norma McCorvey was arrested for disruptive behavior during the confirmation hearings of Judge Sonia Sotomayor? Wait. Maybe not. The networks only gave her a few cursory seconds, if any. McCorvey is "Jane Roe," the plaintiff in the landmark Roe v Wade lawsuit, and the one-time pro-choicer was shouting for the verdict of her 1973 case to be overturned.

If that's all the notice given the most famous side-switcher in the abortion wars, there's little hope that we'll hear about Abby Johnson in the mainstream media. Johnson, a Planned Parenthood director in Texas, resigned October 6 after watching an ultrasound of an abortion procedure.

"I just thought I can't do this anymore," she said. "And it was just like a flash that hit me and I thought that's it."

On Oct. 23 ABC's "Good Morning America" aired back-to-back segments promoting climate change and, strangely enough, slamming hamburgers. First, George Stephanopoulos worried that Americans were becoming too complacent about global warming and discussed possible climate solutions with "Superfreakonomics" author Stephen Dubner. Dubner suggested choosing a kangaroo burger over a beef burger as a possible solution. Then Stephanopoulos interviewed Michael Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma," and discussed the carbon footprint left behind by a McDonald's quarter-pounder with cheese.

Pollan said that "you're eating oil" when you're eating a burger: "You need oil to make the fertilizer to grow the corn. You need petroleum to make the pesticides to grow the corn. You need oil to move it all around the country."

Factoring in production, processing, and shipment, Pollan claimed that a quarter-pounder cheeseburger amounts to 26 ounces of oil. "What it tells you is that the carbon footprint of that burger is really big," said Pollan. "The result is a product that takes a huge environmental toll and obviously takes a health toll as well."

On the Oct. 23 "Good Morning America," ABC's George Stephanopoulos was troubled. The source of his disquiet was a new Pew Research poll released on Oct. 22 that shows "just 57 percent of Americans see solid evidence" of global warming. [Emphasis ours.] This represents a 14 percent drop since last year. Additionally, the number of those who believe climate change is caused by human activity fell 11 percent. To the media's true believers - and those who just like reporting a good scare story - these numbers are upsetting.

GMA in particular has a stake in making sure Americans believe they're destroying the planet, since the morning show has been a tireless purveyor of climate change propaganda. Stephanopoulos referenced the poll in introducing a segment on the new book "Superfreakonomics," which offers "radically different" solutions on how to "save our planet."

"Superfreakonomics" co-author Stephen Dubner agreed with Stephanopoulos that global warming "very well may be" a serious problem. But he then argued that "the proposed solution of carbon mitigation as the one and primary path [to combating climate change] will be too little and too late, and it's too optimistic."

On Oct. 22, ABC's "The View" tsked at "the media" for presenting an alleged suspect as guilty. The focus of their discussion was Nicole Howell, a former high school teacher that was accused of having sex with a 16-year-old student but has since been acquitted of the charges.

"Is her teaching career over?" worried Whoopi Goldberg. "They accused her of it; it turned out she hadn't done it, and they made a big hoo ha. But now can she go back to teaching? What can she do?"

"I think it's wrecked in a certain way, unfortunately, this poor girl," said Joy Behar. "Any time somebody shouts fire, ya know, when there is none, is a problem. This is going to haunt her - unless she goes into the witness protection program."

The Federal pay czar announced that executives in companies that took bailout funds from the Troubled Asset Recovery Program should not receive the bonuses that were announced recently. And there are rumblings about extending government reach into the executive compensation at all publicly traded companies. That would be just fine with Harry Smith at CBS's "Early Show."

On Oct. 22, Smith interviewed Elizabeth Warren, the chairperson of the Congressional Oversight Panel - basically the government-mandated babysitter of companies that were bailed out by TARP funds.

"Guys, you can't party on like it's 2007," said Warren. "If you're going to have to take taxpayer dollars, then it means the game has to change."  

In performing its duty to help save us from ourselves, ABC often turns to its favorite kill-joy food police, the Center for Science in the Public Interest. And they did it again on Oct. 21, when "Good Morning America's" Lisa Stark lamented with CSPI's executive director, Michael Jacobson, about the conniving designs of the food industry to lure unsuspecting consumers into its artery-clogging, diabetes-ridden death trap.

On Oct. 20, Media Research Center Vice President of Business & Culture, appeared on the Fox Business Network to discuss recent calls from journalists and liberals for government intervention in America's ailing newspaper industry.

"I can hardly believe that the Washington Post would publish an editorial asking for a taxpayer bailout of newspapers," said host Stuart Varney. "Tell me I should not be shocked."

Varney, said Gainor, shouldn't be surprised, since the editorial was "pegged to a report that came out by former editor Len Downey calling for exactly that same thing." Gainor explained that industry insiders and liberals, along with some on Capitol Hill are either desperate to save journalism jobs or salivating at the prospect of exercising greater control over the media. "You've got both houses of Congress, the Federal Trade Commission and the FCC all looking at the future of journalism and all trying to get their hooks into it."