Establishment Press Late to Two Stories: Nidal Hasan Wants to Join ISIS, and the ISIS Southern Border Threat

August 29th, 2014 9:53 PM

If there is a terrorist attack on U.S. soil by ISIS, we had better hope that Fox News or New Media outlets don't report it first. Because if they do, based on behavior seen in two stories during the past day, Americans who depend on the establishment press to deliver their news won't find out for hours, if not longer.

The first story concerns news tonight from three different sources — Judicial Watch (HT National Review's The Corner), Breitbart, and Fox News — is that "Islamic terrorist groups are operating in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and planning to attack the United States with car bombs or other vehicle born improvised explosive devices." The news is six hours old. As of 9:25 EDT, the Associated Press has nothing on these developments, not even the Obama administration's heated denials. The New York Times also had nothing, not even in its "evening briefing." The second concerns Nidal Hasan, the convicted 2009 Fort Hood mass mass murderer.


Fox News reported almost 24 hours ago that Hasan wants to became a citizen in ISIS's caliphate. The Blaze picked up the story almost immediately. Other New Media outlets slowly got to the story. The first evidence of establishment press coverage of Hasan's wish was at CNN just before noon this morning.

Here is some of Catherine Herridge's original coverage at Fox:

Fort Hood shooter says he wants to become 'citizen' of Islamic State caliphate

NidalHasanWide2014

The convicted shooter in the Fort Hood massacre has written a letter to the leader of the Islamic State saying he wants to become a "citizen" of the caliphate, in the latest example of the terror group's reach inside the U.S.

The letter from Nidal Hasan, obtained by Fox News, comes after two Americans reportedly died fighting for ISIS in Syria. Sources late Wednesday identified the second as Abdirahmaan Muhumed, of Minneapolis. Fox affiliate KMSP-TV in Minneapolis reported that Muhumed was killed in the same battle as Douglas McArthur McCain, who grew up outside Minneapolis in the town of New Hope and most recently lived in San Diego.

... In the undated letter, Hasan -- who fatally shot 13 people and injured more than 30 at Fort Hood in 2009 in what the Defense Department called “workplace violence”-- tells ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi that he wants to join the caliphate.

"I formally and humbly request to be made a citizen of the Islamic State,”Hasan says in the handwritten document addressed to “Ameer, Mujahid Dr. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.”

"It would be an honor for any believer to be an obedient citizen soldier to a people and its leader who don't compromise the religion of All-Mighty Allah to get along with the disbelievers."

The two-page letter includes Hasan’s signature and the abbreviation SoA for Soldier of Allah.

Hasan's attorney, John Galligan, said the letter “underscores how much of his life, actions and mental thought process are driven by religious zeal. And it also reinforces my belief that the military judge committed reversible error by prohibiting Major Hasan from both testifying and arguing…how his religious beliefs” motivated his actions during the shooting.

The mass murder Hasan carried out is still considered "workplace violence" by the federal government and the U.S. military.

The other aspect of the establishment press's sloth is that they often don't give credit where credit is due. To its credit, CNN did credit Fox for the Hasan story. The holdup in the establishment press over reporting tonight's news about the ISIS threat south of the border may be the need to cobble together enough of an "original" story that they can then fail to credit those icky people at Judicial Watch and Breitbart.

A Google News search on Juarez attack at 9:45 p.m. (not in quotes sorted by date) returned only 14 results, none of them from national establishment press outlets. A Google News search on Nidal Hasan's full name (in quotes, sorted by date) returned 55 results, with very few of them coming from such outlets.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.