Azeem Ibrahim on Rohingya Ethnic Cleansing
A human rights nightmare continues to unfold in Myanmar, as hundreds of thousands of Rohingya flee what a new UN report calls “coordinated and systemic” attacks by security forces.
Jack Shaheen, Vital Critic of Denigrating Images
A longtime FAIR friend, Jack Shaheen died on Monday. A humanist to the core, he warned about the creation of “the character whom we hate and we detest.”
How Corporate Media Paved the Way for Trump’s Muslim Ban
while it’s important to lay primary blame for the Muslim travel ban at the feet of the man who signed it, years of Islamophobic coverage in corporate media—right-wing, centrist and “liberal”—laid the propaganda groundwork to get us here.
A Lesson Media Missed About the Dangers of Scapegoating
An attack on a Canadian mosque could have provided a critical lesson in the fallacy, and the danger, of singling out particular categories of people. That is, if US media had paid more than passing attention to the story.
ACTION ALERT: Tell CNN to Stop Using Trump Propaganda Term ‘Terror-Prone Countries’
Please contact CNN and tell the network to stop adopting the Trump administration’s “terror-prone” label as its own description of the countries targeted by Trump’s immigration order.
NYT Looks at the Political Exploitation of White Supremacism—but Not Too Hard
The New York Times attempts to provide insight into how modern-day racists negotiate the contemporary racial terrain. But this is hard to do, given that the Times along with other establishment media outlets are a crucial part of that terrain.
When Media Learned Killer’s Ethnicity, Then They Knew to Call It ‘Terrorism’
Once the shooter was identified as Omar Mateen, a US citizen of Afghan descent, the narrative changed. After this South Asian ethnicity was revealed, news media began calling the attack an act of terror.
Bombs Speak Louder Than Words: The Liberal Reinvention of George W. Bush
As the demonization of Muslims once again gains currency in American electoral politics, liberal personalities are joining the call to return to the good old days when Republicans fielded candidates who talked sweetly to the community of over 1.5 billion Muslims around the world while at the same time ordering warplanes to bomb an ever larger number of them.
Arun Kundnani on Islamophobia & the ‘War on Terror,’ Keane Bhatt on a Tale of Two Elections
The San Bernardino killings have added fuel to an upsurge of Islamophobia in US media and politics that in some ways is worse than that seen in the wake of September 11, 2001.
Jesse Hagopian on Seattle vs. Education ‘Reform,’ Rachel Meeropol on Justice for 9/11 Detainees
Seattle teachers held what looks like a successful strike, 100 percent of one high school class opted out of standardized tests, and the state Supreme Court declared charters unconstitutional. CounterSpin talks to a Seattle teacher about what it all means.
Politico Finds ‘Capital of American Jihad’—Based on 2 Cases, 6 Years and 268 Miles Apart
Three of the worst things in modern journalism–the bogus trend piece, pointlessly sprawling “writerly” #longread pretense and anti-Islamic fear-mongering–have combined forces to create an absurd, albeit literate, piece of War on Terror propaganda.
USA Today Responds: ‘Criticizing Violent Islamists Does Not Tarnish All Muslims’
Brian Gallagher, the editor of USA Today‘s editorial page, writes to those who responded to his paper’s February 2 cartoon (FAIR Blog, 2/3/15): Dear readers, I rarely respond to letter-writing campaigns, but I’ll take a moment to respond to this one because I think that FAIR’s glib analysis of the editorial cartoon published recently in […]
Muslims Are Nazis, USA Today Jokes
The cartoon by Cameron Cardow of the Ottawa Citizen that USA Today selected as its daily editorial cartoon for February 2 is not terribly hard to parse: Islam is the modern equivalent of Nazism, and threatens a new Holocaust.
Muslim-Bashing Not a No-Go Zone for Bobby Jindal
As Arsalan Iftikhar suggested, Bobby Jindal does devote considerable effort to criticizing minority groups who have done less to fit the the American majority image. This strategy was on full display in Jindal’s softball interview with Fox News host Neil Cavuto.
The Only ‘No-Go Zones’ Are Found in Fox News’ Fantasyland
Steve Emerson was far from alone on Fox News in advancing a xenophobic fantasy of European urban areas lost to Western civilization.
Fox’s O’Reilly: ‘All the Wolves Have Been Muslims’
Every lone wolf terrorist has been Muslim, says the no spin Fox host.
ABC Makes US the Victim in CIA Torture Report Story
The Senate report revealed shocking, even sickening treatment of the CIA’s captives. But ABC’s focus wasn’t on the US government abuses detailed in the report, but “the fear that its release could threaten American lives.”
Bill O’Reilly, Bill Maher and Islamophobia
Fox host Bill O’Reilly decides to lend fellow Islamophobe Bill Maher a hand.
Time on Iraq War: What Did We Do to Deserve This?
Many corporate news accounts treat the chaos in Iraq as proof that the good intentions of a US superpower cannot overcome tribal grievances. Michael Crowley’s cover story for Time, “The End of Iraq,” might be the quintessential example.
When Is Terrorism Not Terrorism?
Coverage of Las Vegas murders mostly failed to call the crimes “terrorism,” despite the alleged killers leaving behind a note that said “The revolution is beginning,”
