For all their faults, corporate media, by and large, do not usually report the unverified claims of random trolls—unless those trolls happen to be ISIS, or ISIS-linked media.
In the emotionally and politically charged hours after terror attacks or other mass violence, when demagogues both in US right-wing media and within ISIS itself seek to blame Muslims to promote their shared “clash of civilizations” narrative, the media seem more than willing to play along and spread the specter of ISIS responsibility without any objective basis. The headlines blared on social and online media minutes after ISIS-linked media claimed a spurious connection to the act:
- Islamic State Claims Las Vegas Mass Shooting (AP, 10/2/17)
- ISIS Has Claimed Responsibility for the Las Vegas Shooting (Independent, 10/2/17)
- ISIS Claims Responsibility for Las Vegas Massacre (New York Post, 10/2/17)
- ISIS Claims Las Vegas Shooting, Says Stephen Paddock Converted to Islam (Newsweek, 10/2/17)
- ISIS Has Claimed Responsibility for the Shooting, Saying Paddock Converted to Islam ‘Months Ago’ (Business Insider, 10/2/17)
- ISIS Claims Responsibility for Las Vegas Shooting (Time, 10/2/17)
As FAIR has often noted, only 40 percent of people read past the headlines, which means 60 percent of US media consumers get their news from how a story is framed rather than what the actual text says. While some, such as CBS (10/2/17), noted in their initial frame that ISIS made the claim with “no proof” or “offering no evidence,” while others (like AP and Time) later added additional skepticism, one is still compelled to ask: Of what news value is repeating unsubstantiated claims at all?
Doubly so after a string of fake ISIS claims in recent months. As CNN analyst Paul Cruickshank noted on social media, ISIS claimed responsibility in June for an attack on a casino that authorities insist was a robbery gone bad, and the evacuation of Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport in September, which turned out to be caused by verbal threats “from a female passenger in her 50s” after she was denied a seat on a plane.
“It seems like they’re desperate for attention and will claim just about everything,” Colin Clarke, a political scientist and terrorism expert for the Rand think tank, told CNBC (10/2/17) after ISIS claimed the Las Vegas attack. “They’ve lost so much territory, and they fear they’re becoming irrelevant.”
And right on cue, several major outlets were there to make them relevant again. As FAIR (5/26/15) has noted, corporate US media are by far ISIS’s largest recruiting platform—playing their grisly videos on loop for years, mindlessly echoing their every threat, and hyping their status as an existential threat far beyond any objective purchase.
Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist spreads Islamophobic disinformation during mass shooting. (screenshot: @nycsouthpaw)
The grossest example of this “clash of civilizations” narrative, eagerly promoted by both ISIS and the far right, was Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Wayne Allyn Root, a former Libertarian Party VP nominee and radio show host, who insisted all Monday night and into the morning, without providing a speck of evidence, that the killer was part of a team acting on behalf of ISIS. “This is real thing. Clearly coordinated Muslim terror attack. PRAY for our Vegas police. PRAY for victims. VERY bad. Awful,” he told his 110,000 followers.
High-profile alt-right personality Laura Loomer followed suit, insisting, even after the killer’s identity was revealed, that there was “still a connection to Islam”—whatever that means.
The combination of billionaire-funded far-right media and a credulous corporate press, willing to repeat anonymous, evidence-free claims by ISIS outlets, creates a perfect storm of media manipulation. Given a constellation of elements invested in promoting any mass violence as an ISIS operation, perhaps next time the media could hold out for actual proof before echoing claims that prop up this destructive narrative.
The corpress can’t resist sinister self promotion from sociopaths
Foreign or domestic
thank you Adam and the team at FAIR for always being a needed antidote to the constant REAL FAKE NEWS peddled by the corporate/state media, it simply is unbelievable, I bet you even though the FBI is claiming this a hoax from ISIS, the damage will have been already done as these outlets will put that in the back burner while still pushing this was ISIS related.
More US injustice just gives ISIS more credibility.
The “the clash of civilizations,” as Reza Aslan has noted, is not between Islam and the West, but within Islam. It’s the clash between those who want to use violence to define for all Muslims the only right way to be a “true Muslim” and those who insist that all Muslims enjoy the right to define for *themselves,* individually, how to be a Muslim. Even if that means rejecting certain dogmas.
Seyran Ateş is a heroine of mine. She is under constant German police protection, 24/7, after founding a liberal masjid in Berlin, the The Ibn Rushd-Goethe masjid. She gets threats from the Muslims who believe she’s a traitor to Islam.
Thanks be to Allah (swt) that she has police protection. Every Muslim should enjoy that much protection if that’s what it takes to ensure their human rights.
Has FAIR covered her or other liberal Muslims rejecting toxic patriarchy? It’s not a sarcastic question, I wholeheartedly hope you have or will. For all us Muslims who just want to enjoy the same rights as Westerners do to define their identity.
And for world peace.
A lot of the media have the CIA giving arms to rebels back in 2013 in Syria, and other people want to know where ISIS gets all those new Toyota trucks and Humvees and Abrams tanks……so wouldn’t it just be easier for the press to say, ” CIA terrorizes Las Vegas.” I mean all the guns that Paddock guy had , and how did he get it all into his room plus get all the cameras set up too. This is too weird, isn’t it—–that an unassum’ing, mild mannered retired accountant guy becomes the Bourne Identity in Las Vegas? Oh wait, let’s not forget M16 and their weirdness and maybe we can add James Boond in too, Or maybe if the Pentagon and military actually had budgets, we could see where all the money disappears to, and probably too, there is no budget for the CIA,,,,,,maybe CIA really stands for CHARGE INTERNAL ACCOUNTING –so no one gets a bill at all. So, here are real thoughts and questions presented as news————-and it’s more fun than working to get the real stuff, although, very often what sounds insanely ridiculous turns out to be true. : 0
One particularly theme running through all corporate media accounts is the looking for a motive behind such attacks. Why did he do it? they wail. Yet the most obvious reason was largely ignored. He did it because he could. He did it because he was able to. He was able to purchase a small armoury of military-weapons, no questions asked, in order vent his frustrations.
The reason why similar incidents so rarely happen in in other nations is because they can’t. Even if someone does feel like killing and wounding dozens of people they can’t hoard enough weapons to do it without raising suspicion.
What is particularly disturbing to Europeans is how the US media appears almost to revel in ecstasy whenever there is a terrorist attack in Europe, thrilled that it hardly ever happens on American soil. Yet, though the chance of getting caught up in a terrorist is actually very slight in America, you are many, many more times to die at the hands of a police officer than you would be to die in Europe from a terrorist attack. You are also much more at risk at dying in an attack mounted by a so-called lone wolf in Las Vegas than an attack by a knife-wielding Islamic ‘terrorist’ on the streets of London.
Stephen Paddock did it because buying weapons and ammuntion – specifically designed and manufactured for killing people – was way, way easier than seeking medical help for whatever ailed him.