February 16th 2009
MSM Yawns As NY Muslim Beheads Wife
Note: This story has been updated with Tuesday afternoon’s post for consideration by the Watcher’s Council
A
Muslim unhappy with his wife’s quest for independence has been charged with beheading her and dumping her body in his upstate New York television studio.
Aasiya Z. Hassan, 37, had filed for divorce from her husband, Muzzammil Hassan, 44, on grounds of cruel and unusual punishment, following a marriage of humiliation, beatings, calls to the police, restraining orders and death threats, according to the woman’s attorney.
Here’s the irony: Muzzammil Hassan founded his TV network, Bridges TV, four years ago “to counter anti-Islam stereotypes.”
“Every day on television we are barraged by stories of a ‘Muslim extremist, militant, terrorist, or insurgent,’” Hassan said in the 2004 release. “But the stories that are missing are the countless stories of Muslim tolerance, progress, diversity, service and excellence that Bridges TV hopes to tell.” (Fox)
No word yet if the Hassan story will headline – poor choice of words there – today’s news on Bridges TV.
And no word on why the story does not appear on CNN, ABC, CBS – or even the home state paper, the NY Times. (MSNBC does have the story.)
Update 1: As I reported this morning, the NY Times is not covering the beheading of an upstate NY Muslim woman by her husband – even though it’s a state story, even though he owns a TV network designed to overturn “stereotypes” of Islam … and even though IT’S A BEHEADING FOR GOODNESS SAKE!
My lib friend Dan Chmielewski chides me for chiding the NYT:
Being from Upstate NY, I hope you’ll give me some creds here. But unless is a major story, like the plane crash, the New York Times is not going to cover a local crime story which is what this is. Wonder why you didn’t blog on this story …
… and he links to a Fox News story on Jim Adkisson, a Tennessee truck driver who pled guilty last Monday to killing two people and wounding six others at a church because he considered the liberal church “a den of un-American vipers.”
Dan gets no cred for being from Upstate – although he could score some points by providing some Snappy Grillers or Riggies. But I don’t want to disappoint the boy, so I am blogging on that story – just not as he would want me to. I just re-checked the NYT, and it still has not posted a story on the upstate beheading murder, but lo and behold, it has run no fewer than three stories on Jim Adkisson’s case … way the heck out there in Tennessee:
- Hatred Said to Motivate Tenn. Shooter (July 28, 2008)
- Hate for Liberals and Gay People Drove Gunman, Police Say (July 29, 2008)
- National Briefing – South – Tennessee – Guilty Plea in Church (Feb. 10, 2009)
The July 28 article dedicated a full 28 paragraphs to the story, and the rehash on the 29th managed to come up with 16 more. Last week’s update on the guilty plea was just a paragraph. Here’s the lead of the the first story:
A man who the police say entered a Unitarian church in Knoxville during Sunday services and shot 8 people, killing two, was motivated by a hatred for liberals and homosexuals, Chief Sterling P. Owen IV of the Knoxville Police Department said Monday.
“It appears that what brought him to this horrible event was his lack of being able to obtain a job, his frustration over that, and his stated hatred for the liberal movement,” Chief Owen said of the suspect, Jim D. Adkisson, 58. “We have recovered a four-page letter in which he describes his feelings and the reason that he claims he committed these offenses.”
The Chmielewski theory that the NYT doesn’t bother with local crime stories elsewhere falls apart here, since two killed with a shotgun, even in a church, isn’t as newsworthy as one person killed by beheading, Muslim or not. No, what makes it newsworthy is that Adkisson had a “stated hatred for the liberal movement.” Had a Unitarian shot up a Baptist church because of a “stated hatred of the conservative movement” – newsworthy as that would be on its face – rest assured the NYT wouldn’t have covered it.
The conclusion is irrefutable: The NY Times will take any opportunity it can to discredit conservatives, particularly conservative Christians, and it will avoid any opportunity to paint Muslims in a negative light.
Update 2: As of 2:40 PST Tuesday, the NYT is still ignoring the story.
Update 3: The Bridges TV site tries valiently to keep probing eyes off the site. The home page carries a brief statement of deep sorrrow and shock at the murder and arrest. When I tried to go to the schedule page, it held for a bit, then flipped back to the home page, so it took several attempts before I identified this “moderate” Muslim fare:
James Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute, holds forth on Mondays and Saturdays from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. Zogby may be a moderate in that he’s never actually killed a Jew, but …
Zogby has two goals: to make Arab Americans more powerful than Jewish Americans and to be their preeminent leader. Zogby’s engagement in American politics is motivated, in part, by his concern with what he views as the problem of non-Arabs-and specifically of American Jews-occupying key positions making U.S. policy toward the Middle East. Zogby insinuates that as a result of their background, these officials are incapable of being fair. …
Zogby has come to the defense of extremist Muslim groups such as the Muslim Brethren, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, arguing that these groups are merely “politically” or “religiously” opposed to the peace process. He defends the American Muslim Council (AMC), a Muslim American organization based in Washington that forwards the cause of extremist Islamic organizations such as Hamas, as well as Islamic radical movements in Algeria, Sudan, and other countries. He also has the temerity to call upon Jewish organizations to follow his lead on these issues. …
Zogby also defends individual terrorists. When Arafat in 1995 appointed Ziad Abu Eain as the comptroller of the Palestinian Authority, Zogby publicly supported the appointment, still insisting that there had never been credible evidence against Abu Eain. When the U.S. government arrested Musa Abu Marzook, a Hamas leader, in July 1995 in New York on grounds of Israel’s warrant of arrest, Zogby characterized the arrest as “a huge mistake” and “not helpful to the peace process.”
[Read much more from this Middle East Forum article here.]
Zogby is a Maronite Christian, not a Muslim … but if his views represent moderate Islam, there are no moderate Muslims.
Every night from Tuesday to Saturday, Democracy Now! [with an exclamation point, as if we don't have it now], the flagship news program from the radical Pacifica Network, gets the 9 to 10 pm prime time slot on Bridge TV. You may recall this group from the news: Founder/journo Amy Goodman, two producers and a videographer were arrested by police outside the 2008 Republican National Convention on charges of probable cause for riot. Here’s typical Amy Goodwin-speak:
[Cherif] Bassiouni’s scathing 2005 U.N. report accused the U.S. military and private military contractors of “forced entry into homes, arrest and detention of nationals and foreigners without legal authority or judicial review, sometimes for extended periods of time, forced nudity, hooding and sensory deprivation, sleep and food deprivation, forced squatting and standing for long periods of time in stress positions, sexual abuse, beatings, torture, and use of force resulting in death.”
The piece lacks any mention of terrorist attrocities against the West (or other Muslims), but plenty of negative interpretations of the US response.
Bridges TV is no better a spokesperson for the chimera of the moderate Muslim than is its founder and chief beheader.
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February 16th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
February 18th, 2009 at 10:36 am
February 19th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
February 20th, 2009 at 7:36 am
February 20th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Comments
February 16th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Being from Upstate NY, I hope you’ll give me some creds here. But unless is a major story, like the plane crash, the New York Times is not going to cover a local crime story which is what this is.Wonder why you didn’t blog on this story: http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2009Feb09/0,4670,ChurchShooting,00.html
February 16th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
I think a Muslim beheading in America is newsworthy on its face, Dan, just as a church killing is. I think I will blog on the church killing – because the NY Times, which won’t cover the beheading story (because it’s from upstate?!) has run at least THREE stories on the church killing you cite!
February 18th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
FYI, it’s Amy Goodman, not Goodwin. And I’m not her PR person.
It’s funny and odd that you’d use a quote that quotes another with only an adjective (scathing) to support your position. That brings me to my next point, what is your point? You quote part of her piece to emphasize, I assume, her lack of breadth and fairness in her work, but isn’t the point of pointing out atrocities to, um, in fact point out atrocities? If she continued with stating that terrorists commit atrocities then wouldn’t the piece be attempting to justify US military and private contractor abuses?
An atrocity should be able to stand on it’s own, and that includes the acts of terrorists, freedom fighters and radicals alike. Should a story on terrorists like the 9/11 acts be counters in it’s content with atrocities by our own government so as to make it “fair,” and “impartial” as you imply Goodman’s words should? I think not. Did you complain that the 9/11 coverage in media wasn’t “balanced” in pointing out US government and private contractor atrocities and abuses leading up to said acts? I didn’t think so.
February 18th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
My point is so simple it needs no explanation: Goodman represents a hard left point of view, which is obvious to anyone who’s followed her, and that Hassan – the supposed “moderate” Muslim – gives her several hours a week on his network to espouse her radical views, therefore, applying the term “moderate” to Bridges TV, and by association its owner, is pretty silly.
If I were a full-time blogger and had the time to fully research Goodman’s work, I could have come up with a better quote than that one to illustrate her radicalism. But I had to limit my search to the few posts on the Democracy Now! site due to the time constraints I’m always under when I’m blogging. It worked well enough for me, anyway, because her sympathetic view of terrorists is extreme, not mainstream.
February 19th, 2009 at 10:12 am
What I didn’t point out is that your original point about Hassan was understood without bringing up a poorly executed knock on a reporter. Her quote only diminished your intent, as I see it.
The fact that you use terms, conveniently defined by yourself, like “mainstream,” “extreme,” “radicalism,” “sympathetic” all indicate a lack of OR inability to understand what her work is about. I’m not trying to defend her although I feel by speaking up about your abusive use of generalizations I inadvertently end up doing so.
When you define someone as “radical” you pigeonhole not only your blog’s views about that person (with that term), you also pigeonhole your understanding of the broader issues. Luckily, journalism is supposed to and does so, by it’s better practitioners, rise above such black and white stereotyping and expressed bias.
I still find some of your statements and views very refreshing. I guess that’s the difference with blogging and journalism: bloggers accept and celebrate their acrid bias and journalists are supposed to act in accord with their unprofessed hypocratic oath. I just don’t think generalized statements are productive, only self serving.
February 19th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Pigeonholing is fine if it works; that’s why it exists, because it has worked. You have pigeonholed me as someone who has a lack of ability to understand what her work is about because of a few words I used. I pigeonholed her because of a whole lot of words she has produced over her career.
The LA Times, no conservative outlet, refers to her work at Democracy Now! as “radio’s voice of the disenfranchised left.” Isn’t that pigeonholing – and isn’t it calling her, as I did, not mainstream and probably radical, since the disenfranchised left is radical?
That said, I respect some of her work, especially her work in East Timor, reporting an important story that was being all too much ignored by the MSM. But I think it’s safe to say that her program was on Bridge TV because it espoused a viewpoint to the left of mainstream America’s POV.
February 19th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
My point is that all these people here supporting the New York Times are de facto guilty of aiding and abetting enemies of humanity and their crimes against humanity. They are no allies of women, of liberty, or of the United States of America. They are either dupes, at best, or agent provocateurs at worse.
Btw, Laer, Aasiya died because nobody gave her 2nd Amendment rights. Nobody gave her First Amendment rights. They didn’t give a fauk because it wasn’t going to benefit their power, wealth, and status.
This is what Target Focus Training was made to stop. The destruction of personal liberties by thugs and people who need killing. And there’s a lot of people who need killing, Laer. A lot. And in very creative and immediate fashions unwritten and unseen amongst the aristocrat tea parties of the Left.
February 19th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Y – I think you’d like Prayers for the Assassin by Robert Ferrigno. A lot of deep strategy and pragmatic violence …
February 20th, 2009 at 8:01 am
dated feb 17:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/nyregion/18behead.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Aasiya%20Hassan&st=csewere you intentionally searching for the wrong thing?
February 20th, 2009 at 9:05 am
It ran this morning – one week after the Fox report.