Two weeks ago, my colleague Matthew Sheffield noted an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about a publishing company going back on its agreement to publish a historical fiction/romance novel centered around Aisha, a wife of the Prophet Muhammad. As of August 21, the mainstream broadcast media networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) are ignoring the controversy, even as more print outlets cover the developing story.

Today, Erik Lacitis of the Seattle Times reported the story in the August 21 paper, including details of how Random House-retained book reviewer and University of Texas Austin professor Denise Spellberg actively sought to inflame Muslim Web sites with fury over the unpublished manuscript of Spokane, Wash., journalist Sherry Jones's "The Jewel of Medina" (emphasis mine):