Media Masks Mosque: AP Bans “Ground Zero Mosque”

The media has its marching orders. No "Ground Zero Mosque" when referring to the Ground Zero mosque.

AP DIRECTIVE ISSUED TODAY:

AP Standards Center issues staff advisory on covering New York
City mosque
Associated Press Deputy Managing Editor for
Standards and Production Tom Kent sent the following note to the staff about
covering the New York City mosque story:
Aug. 19, 2010
Colleagues,
Here
is some guidance on covering the NYC mosque story, with assists from Chad
Roedemeier in the NYC bureau and Terry Hunt in Washington:
1. We
should continue to avoid the phrase “ground zero mosque” or “mosque at ground
zero” on all platforms. (We’ve very rarely used this wording, except in
slugs, though we sometimes see other news sources using the term.) The site of
the proposed Islamic center and mosque is not at ground zero, but two blocks
away in a busy commercial area. We should continue to say it’s “near” ground
zero, or two blocks away.
WE WILL CHANGE OUR SLUG ON THIS STORY LATER
TODAY from “BC-Ground Zero Mosque” to “BC-NYC
Mosque.”
In short headlines, some ways to refer to the
project include:
_ mosque 2 blocks from WTC site
_ Muslim
(or Islamic) center near WTC site
_ mosque near ground zero
_
mosque near WTC site
We can refer to the project as a mosque, or as a
proposed Islamic center that includes a mosque.
It may be useful in some
stories to note that Muslim prayer services have been held since 2009 in the
building that the new project will replace. The proposal is to create a new,
larger Islamic community center that would include a mosque, a swimming pool,
gym, auditorium and other facilities.

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RS McCain called it: The Associated (Orwellian) Press

This is not new. This is journalistic practice.

Back in January, I wrote this piece for big Journalism: The Society of Professional Journalists: Why We Never Get the Straight Story on Islamic Jihad

In case you’ve ever wondered why you never got the straight story on
Islam directly after Sept. 11, and still haven’t, and why the media
seems in the tank for jihad, here’s a clue.

The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) issued this directive
a couple of weeks after 9/11; for sheer propaganda, their “Diversity
Guidelines” are hard to beat.  In fact, the enemy who attacked our
country in an attempt to bring it down may just as well have been
writing the narrative.

The “guidelines,” adopted at the Society’s national convention on
October 6, 2001, urges journalists to “take steps against racial
profiling in their coverage of the war on terrorism and to reaffirm
their commitment to use language that is informative and not
inflammatory.”

How?  Among other things:

Seek out people from a variety of ethnic and religious
backgrounds when photographing Americans mourning those lost in New
York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

Seek truth through a variety of voices and perspectives
that help audiences understand the complexities of the events in
Pennsylvania, New York City and Washington, D.C.

Seek out experts on military strategies, public safety,
diplomacy, economics and other pertinent topics who run the spectrum of
race, class, gender and geography.

Regularly seek out a variety of perspectives for your
opinion pieces. Check your coverage against the five Maynard Institute
for Journalism Education fault lines of race and ethnicity, class,
geography, gender and generation.

Translation: even if the horror, murder and bloodshed of jihad are inflammatory, don’t tell the people.

There’s more.

To deflect attention away from the Islamic character of jihad, reporters should “portray Muslims, Arabs and Middle Eastern and South Asian Americans in the richness of their diverse experiences.”

Portray the beheaders, the homicide bombers, and the infiltrators in the “richness of their diverse experience”? You mean the stonings, amputations, sharia law, clitorectomies, Jew-hatred, Hindu-hatred, the brutal conquests of India and Persia, the caliphate? Of course not!

Journalists should “make an extra effort to include
olive-complexioned and darker men and women, Sikhs, Muslims and devout
religious people of all types in arts, business, society columns and all
other news and feature coverage, not just stories about the crisis.” In other words, make an extra effort to depict Muslims not engaged in jihad.

Above all, don’t talk about the Islamic aspect of terror attacks, especially right after they happen:

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…Avoid using word combinations such
as ‘Islamic terrorist’ or ‘Muslim extremist’ that are
misleading because they link whole religions to criminal activity. Be
specific: Alternate choices, depending on context, include ‘Al Qaeda
terrorists’ or, to describe the broad range of groups involved in
Islamic politics, ‘political Islamists.’ Do not use religious
characterizations as shorthand when geographic, political, socioeconomic
or other distinctions might be more accurate.”

Who cares if the jihadis call themselves Muslims and say they’re fighting for Islam?  Celebrate diversity!

The SPJ continues: “Do not represent Arab Americans and Muslims as monolithic groups. Avoid conveying the impression that all Arab Americans and Muslims wear traditional clothing.” And “when describing Islam,” the guidelines continue, “keep
in mind there are large populations of Muslims around the world,
including in Africa, Asia, Canada, Europe, India and the United States.
Distinguish between various Muslim states; do not lump them together as
in constructions such as ‘the fury of the Muslim world.’”

And yet Obama does.

The “Islamic world” does. The ummah – a word you often hear in Muslim discourse — is the worldwide community of Muslims, regardless of national origin.

Instead, journalists should focus on largely imaginary backlash: “cover the victims of harassment, murder and other hate crimes as thoroughly as you cover the victims of overt terrorist attacks.”
And so the media dutifully covered the bogus tales of “harassment” just
days after 3,000 Americans were brutally murdered by Muslims on our own
soil.  The same thing happened after the Fort Hood massacre.

The SPJ is telling journalists to throw Americans under the bus and
kiss the adherents to the Islamic ideology that murdered our people and
want to take over this country.

Then, of course, they reach for the cheap moral equivalent: “When
writing about terrorism, remember to include white supremacist, radical
anti-abortionists and other groups with a history of such activity.” There aren’t any — except maybe three in an outhouse somewhere in Appalachia. But not to worry: make it up, or pull the Unabomber out of your hat, and Timothy McVeigh while you’re at it, too.

Just how long has the Muslim Brotherhood been strategizing the takedown and take over of the U.S. and the West? Decades.

And while we have no coherent strategy for fighting the enemy — hell,
we can’t even name them — they have a war plan that is so detailed and
exact that every t is crossed and every i dotted.  That we are not
fighting back effectively is, in large part, because the Society of
Professional Journalists is doing its best to make sure no one knows there is a war on.  As Osama bin Laden himself said in 1998:

On that basis, and in compliance with God’s order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies —
civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can
do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to
liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip,
and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam,
defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with
the words of Almighty God, “and fight the pagans all together as they
fight you all together,” and “fight them until there is no more tumult
or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God.”

We — with God’s help — call on every Muslim who believes
in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God’s order to kill the
Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We
also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the
raid on Satan’s U.S. troops and the devil’s supporters allying with
them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a
lesson.

UPDATE: I Own the World has a better idea for a name.

UPDATE: Better yet, BigFurHat coins "The World Betrayed Center"

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