Media Reacts to News That Norwegian Terror Suspect Isn't Muslim

[Arrowhead2k1]

Yesterday's first reports on the massacre in Norway suggested that there was a link between the horrific attacks, which left 92 dead at latest reports, and Muslim extremists. Only later was the news released that the suspect taken by police, Anders Behring Breivik, was apparently a conservative, right-wing Christian with strong anti-Muslim and anti-immigration beliefs. Many in the media were left reeling over the fact that others were so quick to report and comment that Muslims were involved, before there was clear evidence. Rupert Murdoch's newspaper The Sun had as a headline on the front page, "Al Qaeda Massacre: Norway's 9/11." The Wall Street Journal posted an editorial on the bombings that begins with references to Islam. It starts:

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When cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad appeared in a Danish newspaper in the fall of 2005 and sparked a full-blown jihadist campaign against Denmark, then-Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen responded with a telling remark. "We Danes feel like we have been placed in a scene in the wrong movie," he told the German newsweekly Der Spiegel."

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Joe Weisenthal, deputy editor of Business Insider, tweeted: "It is pretty bewildering that the first 3 paragraphs of this WSJ editorial on Norway are about Al-Qaeda/Islam." And Eric Umansky, a senior editor at ProPublica tweeted: "You can almost see the tracked changes in this WSJ editorial blaming Islamists for Norway attacks."

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Read More at: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2011/07/media-reacts-news-norwegian-terror-suspect-isnt-muslim/40322/

[krispos42]

1. If it ain't Muslim, it ain't terror.

White Christian right-winger? Why, this is just a non-political mass shooting.


Nothing to see here. Move along.

[handmade34]

2. ...

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/07/the-washington-post-owes-the-world-an-apology-for-this-item/242400/

"...this is a sobering reminder for those who think it's too tedious to reserve judgment about horrifying events rather than instantly turning them into talking points for pre-conceived views. On a per capita basis, Norway lost twice as many people today as the U.S. did on 9/11. Imagine the political repercussions through the world if double-9/11-scale damage had been done by an al-Qaeda offshoot. The unbelievably sweeping damage is there in either case. For an example of a sober, dignified, shocked but resolute and democratic way to respond to national tragedy, see the moving and impressive speech by Norway's Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg, here. (Thanks to M. Fullilove.)

Seven Twenty-four hours after the Post item went up, six twenty-three hours after its claims were shown to be false and hysterical, it's still there, with no correction or apology..."

[dipsydoodle]

3. The Sun had as a headline ?

That was mentioned here yesterday and yet their newspapers here in the UK , which were printed late Friday night, certainly didn't have that headline. Maybe just a draft which was never used.:shrug:

[barbtries]

4. should we be asking,

what is it about christianity that leads to these horrific acts of terror?
funny that, at least in this snip, it isn't called rupert murdoch's wsj.

[LadyLeigh]

5. They soo wanted this to be a muslim.

[newthinking]

6. Not just them, MSNBC did the same