Islam

UPDATE (9/30 - 1:13 pm): The Society of Professional Journalists emailed me requesting a correction. Clarification - though no correction - below the fold. When American religious leaders spoke out against the planned burning of Korans by a crazy Florida pastor, it was a hot news item. Likewise, when another group of clergy condemned the supposed "anti-Muslim frenzy" in the United States, the…

A New York Times reporter, who has co-authored several fawning articles on the Ground Zero mosque, previously attended a media training program run by the mosque's organizer, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, according to the group's website. The journalist, Sharaf Mowjood, participated in an April, 2009 media training program led by Rauf's American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA), reported…

Here's a fact you're not likely to see on tonight's evening news broadcasts: According to a recent poll, Arabs living abroad are more likely to be opposed to the "Ground Zero Mosque" than the American media are.According to a recent survey by the Arabic online news service Elaph (Arabic version here), 58 percent of Arabs think the construction should be moved elsewhere. And according to a Media…

Disgraced former White House correspondent Helen Thomas will be receiving a lifetime achievement award next month from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.Coming roughly three months after Thomas was forced to resign from Hearst Newspapers for disgustingly telling Israeli Jews to move back to Germany and Poland and "get the hell out of Palestine," this is clearly going to raise a lot of…

On Saturday’s Fox News Watch, host Jon Scott picked up on a recent "Media Reality Check" report by the Media Research Center – parent organization to NewsBusters – titled "Smearing America as Islamophobic," which documented that the mainstream media have portrayed America as Islamophobic because of public opposition to the Ground Zero mosque. Scott: "The Media Research Center, Jim, released a…

Check out the following headlines in the British press about the arrest of six men who may have been planning to kill the Pope during his visit to England:"Muslim Plot to Kill Pope" (Daily Express)"Pope visit: Five suspected Islamist terrorists arrested over assassination plot" (Telegraph)"Police question six street cleaners held over plot to attack the Pope" (Daily Mail) (2nd paragraph: "Armed…

Imagine six Israelis had been arrested in the US and charged with possibly plotting against a visiting ayatollah.  Rhetorical question: would Today have mentioned their nationality and/or religion?But when reportedly six Algerian Muslims were arrested in the UK and charged with possibly plotting against visiting Pope Benedict XVI, Today breathed not a word of their identity.  Reporter Nina Dos…

Closing out the "Media Mash" segment on the September 16 edition of his eponymous "Hannity" program, the Fox News host asked for NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell's reaction to NBC's Meredith Vieira telling House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) that the Bush tax cuts "didn't succeed" and asking him "what's so good about them?":Memo to Meredith [Vieira]: You can have a debate about what future…

People have asked me my opinion of the Rev. Terry Jones' threat to burn the Quran this past weekend. Personally I think the best thing to do with this story is to not give this insignificant media-hound with all of fifty parishioners avoice. But it's way too late for that now. So, of course I find the action in poor taste - I would never burn any religion's sacred parchment. That is just wrong…

By a wide margin — 66 percent to 29 percent, according to the most recent ABC News/ Washington Post poll — the public is opposed to building that proposed $100 million Islamic cultural center near the site of the destroyed World Trade Towers. This is not a lightly-held opinion: more than half (53%) told ABC news they are “strongly opposed” to building it near Ground Zero, vs. only 14 percent who…

Appearing as a guest on Tuesday’s Larry King Live on CNN, comedian Bill Maher picked up on a recent contention by Newt Gingrich that President Obama is motivated by anti-colonialism which his Kenyan father felt as the Real Time with Bill Maher host smeared the potential 2012 Republican presidential field as racist:How are they going to out-firebreathe each other? I mean, where this rhetoric has…

On the September 11th Saturday Early Show, CBS News Middle East analyst Reza Aslan slammed opponents of the Ground Zero mosque as having "unapologetically politicized" 9/11 and being part of a "whole wave of anti-Muslim sentiment." While he denounced others for trying to "take advantage of this symbol for their own political purposes," Aslan made his comments only seconds after live coverage of…

Comedian Bill Maher took his anti-religion, anti-conservative views off HBO and into the mainstream Sept. 13 during an appearance on NBC's "Tonight Show." Maher told host Jay Leno he's against the Ground Zero Mosque, because he's "against a mosque anywhere. I'm against a church anywhere, or a Hindu temple or a synagogue." Maher declared that houses of worship are "places that people go to retell…

Rev. Terry Jones may have announced on Saturday's Today that he wouldn't be burning any Korans, but on Sunday Today, NBC Meet the Press host David Gregory was suggesting Jones wasn't worthy of anyone's airtime: "I don't see why this pastor Jones has any sort of forum or any platform that's worthy of discussion."Did Gregory lose that debate inside NBC? When asked by anchor Jenna Wolfe about the…