AP Says the M-Word!

Saturday, June 2. 2007

Credit where credit is due: Kudos to AP writer Adam Goldman.

NEW YORK - Four Muslim men were foiled from carrying out a plot to destroy John F. Kennedy International Airport, kill thousands of people and trigger an economic catastrophe by blowing up a jet fuel artery that runs through populous residential neighborhoods, authorities said Saturday.

Thanks goodness this story did not pretend that the would-be perpetrators were random guys. Our fight is against radical Muslims and fascist Islamicists, and we shouldn't be afraid to say it.

Muslims who are with us or wish us no harm have no reason to be offended by this.

Update: Our friend David Rogers points out:

And by 5:07 p.m, AP changed the lede to make the word Muslim less prominent.

The new lede:

NEW YORK - Federal authorities announced Saturday they had broken up a suspected Muslim terrorist cell planning a "chilling" attack to destroy John F. Kennedy International Airport, kill thousands of people and trigger an economic catastrophe by blowing up a jet fuel artery that runs through populous residential neighborhoods.

Can't know for sure, but one can envision an uppity editor at AP changing "Four Muslim men were foiled," thinking it too incendiary and possibly offensive, to "a suspected Muslim terrorist cell."

I'm betting that within a couple of hours the word "Muslim" will disappear from the first paragraph.

Posted by Paul Geary in Media at 16:53 | Comments (11) | Trackbacks (17)

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And by 5:07 p.m., AP changed the lede to make the word Muslim less prominent.

The new lede:

NEW YORK - Federal authorities announced Saturday they had broken up a suspected Muslim terrorist cell planning a "chilling" attack to destroy John F. Kennedy International Airport, kill thousands of people and trigger an economic catastrophe by blowing up a jet fuel artery that runs through populous residential neighborhoods.

#1 David Rogers on 2007-06-02 17:12 (Reply)

Simply amazing...

#2 Paul Geary (Homepage) on 2007-06-02 17:18 (Reply)

Actually, an alert editor corrected the weak passive voice lede - I don't think they were trying to bury the word "Muslim." If that were the case, the descriptor would have disappeared entirely.

#2.1 kd on 2007-06-03 08:24 (Reply)

Don't you think the second formulation is more ambiguous, though? Do they suspect that the men were Muslim, or do they suspect that it was a terrorist cell? Getting rid of the passive voice by making a sentence more ambiguous is hardly good editing.

#2.1.1 jack on 2007-06-03 11:15 (Reply)

They're not Lutherans?! I'm shocked.

#3 mariahorvath on 2007-06-03 07:53 (Reply)

I agree with Maria - this does not strike me as a "rewrite" to make the Muslim aspect less salient. It is important to point out bias but don't let your own biases promote every wording change into a conspiracy. Now, if the word "Muslim" does disappear, then you'll have a point.

#4 WIldmonk (Homepage) on 2007-06-03 09:01 (Reply)

If it is "not news" that they were Muslims then by all means call it the Muslim War. But as a newspaperman with 30+ years in, I say the AP took the objectivity out of the story to add subjectivity. That said, the second lead was in the active voice. So deduct 5 for watering down the lead, add 2 for the active voice.

#5 DonSurber (Homepage) on 2007-06-03 09:26 (Reply)

I wonder how long it will take for the story to become "Four disaffected youths. . . ."

#6 Narniaman on 2007-06-03 10:14 (Reply)

"Four immigrants without papers seeking a new life ..."

#7 NahnCee on 2007-06-03 11:06 (Reply)

Four undocumented workers coming out of the shadows with the help of the FBI.

#8 j on 2007-06-03 11:36 (Reply)

I'm with the rest of the folks who aren't convinced until the word 'Muslim' really disappears. The new line actually reads stronger for me; they're no longer just Muslims in an airport, they're a suspected Terror Cell.

If it had been the other way around, and "terrorist" had been taken out, wouldn't you be complaining about the AP covering up the presence of terrorist cell activity?

#9 some girl from Chicago on 2007-06-03 15:28 (Reply)

I just checked google's top thirty headlines relating to this story and none of the headlines contained the word "muslim".

#10 Craig W Smith on 2007-06-03 17:37 (Reply)

To cover this story my local paper, the Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, WI), uses an article from the NY Times that doesn't even mention the fact that the 4 men are muslims.

I had no doubt that the 4 men were muslims, the odds are just too great for them to be anything but muslims, but why would the NYT and the Wisconsin State Journal try to hide this fact?

#11 mark on 2007-06-03 17:44 (Reply)

"chilling" attack to destroy John F. Kennedy International Airport, kill thousands of people and trigger an economic catastrophe by blowing up a jet fuel artery that runs through populous residential neighborhoods.

Doesn't sound chilling too me - sounds pretty effing hot

#12 bandit on 2007-06-04 08:45 (Reply)

"Muslim terrorists" > "Muslim men"

Even sweeter there's no follow-up interview from CAIR admonishing us to not be racist -- like every time there's a terrorist attack the accusatory finger misses the perpetrators, sweeping clear across the dial to land on us non-Muslims, and we all get admonished to not be racists.
Bite me. I'm not the terrorist and I haven't done anything wrong, so I shouldn't be the issue here.

But this story is refreshingly different -- this story tells it like it is and doesn't apologize for it ... and you ungrateful whingers can't stop complaining long enough to realize it. These sorts of dry, factual, no-nonsense stories are exactly what the internet is forcing the press to tell. But if we don't recognize when we get what we ask for we look like a bunch of cranks.

#13 Laika's Last Woof on 2007-06-04 19:16 (Reply)

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