Press Coverage of Ideologically Motivated Slayings

[Anonymous]

OK. I see what you are saying about not- conflating. Al Qaeda is differently motivated than Taliban is differently motivated than Hamas. Fine, call them by their name--Taliban extremist. Where do we pop the guys like the murderer of the recruiter or the assassin of Theo Van Gogh-they seem to have some common thread, can't quite put my finger on it... Seriously though. Am open to your coinages.


Bouyeri had told the court he had acted out of religious conviction.

Clutching a copy of the Koran, he said that "the law compels me to chop off the head of anyone who insults Allah and the prophet".

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:Where do we pop the guys like the murderer of the recruiter or the assassin of Theo Van Gogh-they seem to have some common thread, can't quite put my finger on it...

Murderers inspired by warped understandings of Islam.

Similarly, Roeder is a murderer inspired by a warped understanding of Christianity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK. I see what you are saying about not- conflating. Al Qaeda is differently motivated than Taliban is differently motivated than Hamas. Fine, call them by their name--Taliban extremist. Where do we pop the guys like the murderer of the recruiter or the assassin of Theo Van Gogh-they seem to have some common thread, can't quite put my finger on it... Seriously though. Am open to your coinages.


Bouyeri had told the court he had acted out of religious conviction.

Clutching a copy of the Koran, he said that "the law compels me to chop off the head of anyone who insults Allah and the prophet".

And the Klan believes that God wants them to drive blacks out of America. They clutch bibles, wear crosses, and sing church hymns at their gatherings. Do you believe that the Klan is a Christian religious movement, or do you think it is a political hate group that uses religion to justify itself?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK--but the discussion under question is who belongs to a large movement. The murderer of the recruiter arguably belongs to a far larger movement than the murderer of the abortionist. How would you label him, and other murderers who call themselves Muslim and are motivated by a sense of injustice and anti-western sentiment, so the term 'Muslim' is not co-opted? Do tell and we can all adopt your term.

Call them by the organizations they belong to. Taliban is Taliban. Muslim Brotherhood is Muslim Brotherhood. Hizbollah is Hizbollah. Al Qaeda is Al Qaeda. Hamas is Hamas. Fatah is Fatah.

It would be convenient to call them by one label but the fact is they are different groups with different objectives. Some of them hate each other (look at the last 30 years in Lebanon). Others are indifferent to the goals of the other. If you have to put a label on them, they are probably better described as Arab nationalists because their generally accepted objective is to remove westerners from the Middle East. Some are pretty religious, but then you have some who are Saudis who are only nominally observant and use religion as a cloak like many Christian politicians do.

[Anonymous]

MIWUI?

MIWUIC?

[Anonymous]

Sadly though, in all seriousness-- it is an actual thread of Islam motivating some of these murderers--though an aberrant one. That is why Muslims need to raise their voices and educate their peers. The madrassas have so brainwashed people, but it is a form of Islam--just like Waaco was a form of evangelism. My friend says when he was in Afghanistan nothing would get the village imam more pissy than when they produced copies of the Koran as a gesture of good will. Suddenly he did not have the lock on things. In Guantanamo the inmates rejected Korans because the suras they had learned in their madrassas were so distorted they thought the real Koran was fake. It is a form of Islam, one that needs to be fought with education and less memorization, more discussion. The Islam of yore supported such; does the Islam of today? Does it in Saudi Arabia? Does it in Iran?

Support Muslim feminists--they are the great hope!

[Anonymous]

Was I the only one disturbed by the equating the killing of Tiller to the assassination of MLK in yesterday's funeral eulogies?

[Anonymous]

Nope.

And today we have another ideologically motivated slaying. Perhaps we should cover them all, honestly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was yesterday's 11:51 poster, who suggested that the disparity in coverage might be because Roeder was "part, albeit on the extreme, of a large movement." The movement I was thinking of was the general pro-life movement. I did not mean to make any value-judgments, since that movement extends from non-political to fanatically activist, from absolutely non-violent to outright terrorist, and from Democrat to Republican. All I meant was that, from the media perspective, there was a hook to hang the story on. Even if it turns out that he shot Tiller because he thought the guy was having an affair with his wife, the press surely THOUGHT his motivation was to kill an abortionist, and their perception is what governed their coverage.

Also, whether you support what Tiller was doing or despise it, I should think you would admit that the man had "news story" written all over him.

It may certainly be true that every individual paper has conscious and/or unconscious political biases in the decisions about what to cover, but I doubt that is what determined the difference at issue here.

Both murders were horrible. I am pro life and I would never lift a hand against, much less a gun, some who believes differently.

The news coverage of the two murders, IMO, reflects the liberal media bias against the media and the war - period. The media largely supports "abortion rights" and just as largely opposes the military and the wars in Iraq and Afganistan. Any story that would make the military sympathetic - and two guys shot down having a cig outside their office is certainly sympathetic - has to be axed. I am sure they would not have run it at all (opinion) if they could have gotten away with it.

There has been more violence in the polling place (Phila for example, tire slashing in Wisconsin, etc.) than there has been in recent years by pro-life supporters. To insinuate that people who hold pro-life convictions are violent, amoral, terrorists, or just wack jobs is a smear that fits into the liberal narrative - and in no way resembles the truth.

Well, as of today, you have a front-page story about someone killing an anti-abortion protester. If liberal bias were in charge, it would not be getting front page coverage and repeat second day coverage.

And I think the second homicide, which is barely discussed in the stories, shows how there are legitimate reasons why one homicide is more newsworthy than another, even though the two victims are just as dead. And this, not liberal bias, is why the recruiter homicide wasn't as widely covered. The news organizations will always treat killing someone for the act of exercising their civil rights more newsworthy than other types of homicides.

[Anonymous]

I did not see that on the front page of today's post. Or the bios and homages. What am I missing here?

[Anonymous]

I don't know. I saw it everywhere. The abortion protester who was killed outside the school.

[Anonymous]

Oh. I did not see it everywhere. It was not front page news on the Post etc. It did not provoke long reflective editorials. etc. etc.

[Anonymous]

By the way, the recruiter was exercising a civil right--to live, much less to recruit for the military.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:By the way, the recruiter was exercising a civil right--to live, much less to recruit for the military.

By that definition, all people were killed for exercising their civil liberties. But the killing of someone for their speech is set aside as more newsworthy. I understand the tragedy for the family is just as great, but the effect of a free speech killing is bigger in the mind of the public.

I don't know why you didn't see it. If you google the victim, Jim Pouillon, you will see lots of coverage plus articles discussing the one notable exception on television. CBS was the only broadcast that didn't do a full report on it. Everyone else had it front and center.