Remember when NewsBusters told you about CNN ignoring a report on left-wing extremism? Perhaps you have heard a reference to Timothy McVeigh recently, as an example of right-wing extremism? Well, as it turns out, McVeigh isn’t the only extremist to bomb a building.
Please welcome Daniel Andreas San Diego (shown at right in photos via FBI.gov) to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Most Wanted Terrorists list – notably, the only domestic terrorist on that list. San Diego is wanted by the FBI for “his alleged involvement in the bombing of two office buildings in the San Francisco, California, area.” Apparently, San Diego is suspected of being involved with two explosions at the Chiron Corporation in Emeryville – a corporation which the FBI says has had business ties to Huntingdon Life Sciences. If you’ve read the report on left-wing extremism, that company is a top priority for left-wing extremists.
But the fun doesn’t stop there.
How much damage have these groups caused? According to the FBI’s press release:
Animal rights and environmental extremism pose a significant domestic terror threat. To date, extremists have been responsible for more than 1,800 criminal acts and more than $110 million in damages. Currently, we are investigating approximately 170 such extremist incidents across the country.
So let’s sum this up: When the media talks about Timothy McVeigh, they’re citing one horrific act of a madman as an example of the evil right-wing extremists. But they pass over one hundred seventy left-wing extremist incidents by failing to cite a single one of these examples.
If there be any doubt, let’s examine the media coverage of the sole domestic terrorist to grace the pages of the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list. A Nexis search for the words “Chiron” or “Shaklee” (the names of the companies targeted by San Diego) from August 28th through October 1st, 2003 (the time around San Diego’s bombings) turns up six stories from the L.A. Times, three stories from the New York Times, and one story from the Washington Post. On ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and MSNBC, there was a combined…zero mentions of this act of domestic terrorism. Three television networks and two ‘round-the-clock news channels failed to report that there was so much as a hiccup in San Francisco – much less multiple bombings.
Now, in the wake of the Janet Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security warning Americans to beware of pro-life veterans’ potential terrorist tendencies, the FBI puts its first domestic terrorist on its Most Wanted Terrorists list – with, among others, Osama bin Laden, the founder of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and the first American to be charged with treason since 1952. And this terrorist happens to be a radical left-wing eco-terrorist. So when can we expect the mainstream media outlets to cover this?
How about quarter-after-never?
