Part 1- If the Media isn’t Biased, It Certainly Chooses it’s Words Carefully
By Matthew Carlos Vargas Stehney
It is commonly accepted that there is at least some bias in mainstream media, especially when known conservatives or liberals tell you how to feel about the news (I’m thinking specifically of people like Glenn Beck and Keith Olberman). As long as partisan politics exists, there will be a debate over whether the liberals or conservatives “own” the media, and who is more disadvantaged in the public realm as a consequence. While partisan political entities debate which side is more to blame for a biased media, American Muslims have to endure biased attacks from both sides of the political aisle. Because these media attacks are against Muslims, and not liberals or conservatives, it is a generally accepted and little questioned practice. Recently, the hot topic for the Muslim-critical media has been the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque,” a community center in lower Manhattan that is to be built by Muslims, which includes a prayer space on its top floors. The rhetoric surrounding this community center has included a range of attacks, from the center being “insensitive” to New Yorkers who had to endure the 9/11 attacks, to some on the streets claiming that if the center is built, “the terrorists have won.” Thankfully, others have claimed that the First Amendment of the US Constitution protects the right for Muslims to build the community center and prayer space almost anywhere they want. Also, many Muslims and non-Muslims have responded to attacks be reminding the public that it was Al Qaeda, a tiny terrorist entity rejected by the vast majority of Muslims around the world, which carried out the attacks, not the Muslims who have been in Lower Manhattan for generations. These Muslims were attacked on 9/11 as was every other New Yorker. Luckily, in America, we have a free press that can help us sort this all out; the kind of press that has the ability to report on both sides of the issue objectively and without rendering a verdict. Unfortunately, the fact that the media has the ability to do this doesn't mean that they will. The images above speak to the lack of objectivity we find in the mainstream media. “NYC mosque planners want 9/11 money,” blares a headline on CNN.com – well, 9/11 was a terrorist attack carried out by Muslims, Muslims are building this “mosque,” the mosque is in lower Manhattan, WHERE THE TERRORIST ATTACKS WERE! And now they want 9/11 money?!?! – wait, what the hell is 9/11 money anyway? It doesn't help that the same week, workers who helped clear Ground Zero after the attacks just reached a settlement of $625 M with the City of New York for exposure to toxic air and materials, resulting in hefty medical bills. Is that the money they want?!?! No, we'll actually have to read the article to find out what they're talking about. Since September 11, 2001, there has been a decrease in commerce and other activity in lower Manhattan, something that the City would like to see reversed. Thus the federally funded Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) grants were established. According to the CNN article “among the criteria used to judge applications…are financial viability, job creation, revitalizing the community and a track record of service in Lower Manhattan.” The blog for Park51 (aka the Ground Zero Mosque) states that the money from the LMDC would “in part fund social service programs for all the residents of Lower Manhattan such as domestic violence prevention, Arabic and other foreign language classes, programs and services for homeless veterans, two multi-cultural art exhibits and immigration services.” The project would also create “hundreds of constructions jobs.” The CNN article quotes one of the LMDC board members, Julie Menin, as saying that the LMDC has “funded museums, public schools, [and] programs to help small businesses hurt after 9/11.” So why didn’t CNN write the headline “NYC Mosque Planners Seek Federal Funding,” or “Mosque Planners Seek Revitalization Grant,” or even “Muslim Community Center Seeks Funds.” ? It’s hard to say what their motives are, but the headline certainly doesn’t make Park51 look very good. CNN is stoking the flames of this controversy by trying to get the average observer to think ‘the Muslims attacked us on 9/11 and now they want money for it?!?!’ This is an obvious lapse in responsible journalism, encouraged by anti-Muslim sensationalism, and is an example that even “The Most Trusted Name in News” can’t be trusted to give us a report without the hysterics and sensationalism of a partisan news source. This isn’t surprising, considering the history of the American media's relationship to Islam. Scholar Edward Said writes that the media presents “a limited series of crude, essentialized caricatures of the Islamic world presented in such a way as, among other things, to make that world vulnerable to military aggression.” While CNN probably isn’t advocating military intervention into the Ground Zero Mosque debate, it still isn’t trying to alleviate the antipathy many Americans have toward Islam (to put it mildly). CNN may not have an official position on Park51, but it chooses its words in such a way that supports an irrational component of the debate: that Park51 is somehow linked to 9/11. Said also writes that “of course, no one has equated the Jonestown massacre, or the destructive frenzy produced at the Who concer[t] in Cincinnati, or the devastation of Indochina with Christianity, or with Western or American culture at large; that sort of equation has been reserved for ‘Islam.’” Have the violent acts of a minority of Christian fundamentalists been associated with Christianity as a whole? No, because we know better than that. It’s too bad we can’t rely on a responsible media to extend this logic to “others.”
See Also:
Chernoff, Allan. "NYC Mosque Planners want 9/11 Money." CNN.com 22 November 2010: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/11/22/new.york.islamic.center/index.html?hpt=T2.
Park51. "Park51 LMDC Funding Request." Park51 Blog 22 November 2010: http://blog.park51.org/2010/11/22/park51-lmdc-funding-request/.
Said, Edward. "Islam as News (1980)." The Edward Said Reader. New York: Vintage Books, 2000. 169-194.
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