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Journalistic Jihad

On its web site, the Society of Professional Journalists has specified reporting guidelines "urging members and fellow journalists to take steps against racial profiling in their coverage of the war on terrorism." The following "guidelines" are part of their commitment to the perpetuation of the media's most valued export: reality-twisting political correctness.

I'll keep the commentary succinct; this story speaks for itself, and if you don't finally realize the level of brainwashing and calculation that goes into every news broadcast, it's probably too late for you.


Seek out people from a variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds when photographing rescue and other public service workers and military personnel.

It's not good enough to just show reality; to just point the camera and let the world speak for itself. No, I like my news networks to shape my reality for me.

Avoid conveying the impression that all Arab Americans and Muslims wear traditional clothing. Use photos and features to demystify veils, turbans and other cultural articles and customs.

Because the ignorant crackers can't tell the difference between a Hijab and Jihad, and are frightened by the "mysterious" aspects of Arab dress.
Cover the victims of harassment, murder and other hate crimes as thoroughly as you cover the victims of overt terrorist attacks.


I'm speechless.


Make an extra effort to include olive-complexioned and darker men and women, Sikhs, Muslims and devout religious people...Seek out experts on military strategies, public safety, diplomacy, economics and other pertinent topics who run the spectrum of race, class, gender and geography.

So a group of experts contributing intelligent insight just won't cut it if they don’t "run the spectrum."

When writing about terrorism, remember to include white supremacist, radical anti-abortionists and other groups with a history of such activity.

Right now, Islamism/political Islam has declared war on us. Somehow the irrelevance of anti-abortionists and white supremacists doesn't matter, because these groups aren't made up of easily offended minorities. I should not have to explain how ludicrous this is.

Do not imply that kneeling on the floor praying, listening to Arabic music or reciting from the Quran are peculiar activities.

In America, there's nothing wrong (nor should there be) with kneeling to pray multiple times a day, listening to Arabic music, or reciting from an ancient book. If that's what your religion asks of you and it doesn't infringe on my civil liberties or tax dollars, be my guest.

But realize that to the Joe Six-Packs of America, those are peculiar activities, just like a woman without a veiled face and scars on her back is “peculiar” to a Saudi.


Avoid using word combinations such as "Islamic terrorist" or "Muslim extremist" that are misleading because they link whole religions to criminal activity.

No, they link elements of a whole religion to criminal activity, which you'd have to be a fool (or a CNN viewer) not to understand. Oh, and when referring to WWII, don't use the term "German fascism," because that links people of a whole nation to "criminal activity."

Avoid using terms such as "jihad" unless you are certain of their precise meaning and include the context when they are used in quotations. The basic meaning of "jihad" is to exert oneself for the good of Islam and to better oneself.

Here we go again. Jihad couldn't possibly mean a divine battle against infidels for the good of Islam and the Islamic state. No, my "jihad" simply means my "struggle."

I hate to break it to you, but so does Mein Kampf.

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  • Anonymous Anonymous said:
    Tuesday, March 11, 2008  

    When a man goes on TV, they have to put lipstick on him. Now, I don't wear lipstick. You don't wear lipstick. I don't think many actors wear lipstick off-screen. But a TV screen is small, it's two dimensional, it has no smell, its sounds are unrealistic, etc.
    The same applies here. When you can only give your audience a small slice of the pie, it's important to get some topping and some crust on there even though most of it is just apple goo. They're sacrificing realistic proportions for variety and I think that's fine as long as you're still showing some dark people out there bombing civilians too. Otherwise I'd be complaining right along with you.
    Saying the news shouldn't make an effort to report rare forms of terrorism is like Montell Williams going on Fox News the other day saying hey why are we talking about Heath Ledger when 28 troops died in Iraq today. Well shit, a zillion troops die all the time, the news doesn't last long enough to devote airtime to every one of them. Heath Ledger is more unique, not more important than soldiers, except in terms of the low supply of Heath Ledgers. Same thing with salaries of baseball players. I think we can agree that teachers are more important that baseball players. But there are a million people out there that can teach, while there are only a few people that meet MLB standards. The supply is so low that it effectively raises the demand.
    All this being said, we can obviously see their intent based on this memo. The goal isn't just to show variety but to throw a bone to the people that complain about this shit, the same people that demand more diversity on network television. I am not one of those people. I'm not for randomly adding in minorities to sitcoms, disregarding acting talent and other factors because it can potentially hurt the show just to make some people feel better. But if it doesn't hurt the show, that's fine by me. In this case, though, diversity in the news is really not hurting anyone. In fact it's making the news more entertaining by showing you the lesser-told stories. And if along the way it happens to to combat the notion that there is something fundamentally different about "dark people," that's fine by me. After all, this kind of demonization is what perpetuates the Arab-Israeli conflict ad infinitum.
    If we don't see some Muslim women without veils, we're going to think they all wear veils. It's not like the news isn't showing us any veiled women at all. Far from it.
    I agree with you on the "Muslim extremist" thing but again, I don't think it really hurts the news any to remove Muslim or Islamic from those phrases since the word terrorism is now inextricably linked to Islam in the Western mind. I agree, criminal activity IS linked to religion in this case, but it is easy for people to misinterpret it as a causal link and it's no skin off my back if the news wants to protect people from their own lack of understanding.
    And "German fascism" would be called that because it was the official government/military acting. top

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