Listen. I have been in the news business all my life, even wrote an entire book about it here, so I know how it works.
Let’s pretend for a moment that I am managing editor of a New York newspaper and it’s a slow news day, which drives me crazy. I need news. I need a headline.
Anything will do, and quick.
I glance across the newsroom. I ask around. Anything happening? People shrug.
“Oh come on,” I yell. “Something. Anything. This is the town that never sleeps.”
I ask Abdul, who runs our Foreign Desk, if he’s got anything to give. “The usual,” he pouts. “Nothing for front page.”
On the Op-ed side, no worries. I’ve got Tom Friedman blaming Israel for this and that. So that’s covered.
At City Desk I remind Aziz that the Paris bombings happened only weeks ago. There must be some reaction.
Okay.
How about this?
He suggests that we run a story about local Muslims coping with an Islamophobic backlash.
“Anything to this?” I ask.
“No, but we can invent, make up a story.”
“Done” – and presto, ladies and gentlemen, Wed, Nov. 25 a story appears in The New York Times with the following headline:
“‘I’M FRIGHTENED’: NEW YORK MUSLIMS COPE WITH BACKLASH”
Are Jewish students frightened? You bet.
Gevalt! – except that the story immediately falls apart and never lives up to the headline.
Muslims, says the piece, are being cautioned not to stand too close to subway rail tracks.
Why?
Has anyone been thrown overboard? No.
Have mosques been burned? No.
Have Muslims been shot, stabbed, run over while walking
along Fifth Avenue --as are Jews in Israel at the hands of Jerusalem Muslims? No.
Have New York Muslims been verbally assaulted. Yes!
Millions? No. Thousands. No.
How many?
Two.
That is the entire story.
Two New York City Muslims report being verbally harassed or “elbowed.”
The Times got this info from CAIR, the disgraced Council on American-Islamic Relations….but that is good enough for the Times.
Good enough to profile an entire population and paint the entire city of New York with the brush of bigotry.
Good enough to entertain the paper’s zombie Liberal readers.
Exactly what happened to these sensitive New York Muslims? Elbowed, yes, but also “spat upon.”
This is special to Muslims?
Happens to everybody in this town that I know – that and much worse.
Horrors –
but then we learn that following the Nov. 13 Paris attacks, there was only ONE hate crime alleged and reported against Muslims.
ONE!
On hate crimes throughout the US,
Muslims suffer the least,
Jews the most – a whopping 83 percent.
Good journalism would demand that this counterpoint be noted, but we’re talking The New York Times, which long ago forgot what it’s supposed to be doing…print the truth.
Still acting on orders to manufacture a crisis, reporter Kirk Semple keeps to his shaky premise by quoting one Muslim after another as being “frightened.”
These days, aren’t we all?
One New York letter-to-the-editor simply put it like this: “I am Jewish and I am frightened.”
Are Jewish students frightened? You bet.
From campus to campus they are consistently bullied and harassed by judeophobic bullies.
Oh that! Never mind. Only Muslims bleed, according to the Times. Jews, never; Christians, neither.
New York-based bestselling novelist Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the international classic “Indecent Proposal” now followed by the clash of civilizations newsroom thriller “The Bathsheba Deadline.” Engelhard is the recipient of the Ben Hecht Award for Literary Excellence. Website: www.jackengelhard.com
