Boston Marathon Bombing

87 Percent of Network Islamic Terror Stories Skip Threats of Ramadan Violence
By Julia A. Seymour | July 22, 2015 | 10:10 AM EDT

Acts of terror marked the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Terrorists cut a bloody path from Tennessee to Tunisia -- one that commanded much of the broadcast network’s attention. Only newscasts often ignored the religious timing of the threats by Muslim terrorists.

The Islamic terrorist group ISIS, which declared a Middle East “caliphate” a year ago on June 29, 2014, strongly encouraged violence during the Muslim holy month. Reuters and The Telegraph (UK) reported on June 23, that an ISIS spokesman called for Muslims to make Ramadan “a month of calamity for the infidels.” The “infidels” include non-Muslims and westerners, but also Shiite Muslims and those ISIS called “apostate Muslims.” Al-Shabaab, another Islamic extremist group, threatened Kenya’s non-Muslims even before Ramadan began, All Africa reported.

NYT's Shane: 'Illogical' to Blame US Muslims for Overseas Terror, But Anti-Islam Protests 'Bolster' Terrorism
By Clay Waters | June 17, 2015 | 10:56 AM EDT

Scott Shane's front-page New York Times Tuesday on a liberal mosque in Boston, a city that's hosted a growing number of Islamic terrorists and extremists, focused on a liberal mosque that promotes tolerance: "Muslims Work To Shed Stigma Tied to Terror – in Boston, a Tolerant Vision of Islam." But Shane's feverish defense of peaceful American Muslims calls up questions of his own previous story, that blamed conservative critics of Islam for fomenting international Islamic extremism.

Harris-Perry Guest: Don't Execute Tsarnaev—Could Become Spox for Reconciling with Islam
By Mark Finkelstein | April 25, 2015 | 1:18 PM EDT

Of all the rotten reasons not to execute Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, we'll give the booby prize to the one offered by Paul Raushenbush, a HuffPo religion editor and ordained American Baptist minister. On today's Melissa Harris-Perry show, Raushenbush imagined that in twenty years, Tsarnaev might become "a spokesperson for reconciling Islam with America. We don't know what this life is going to lead to." Anything's possible, but surely Tsarnaev's sentence should not be based on this sort of idle speculation.  

What made Raushenbush's argument particularly galling was his statement that "the idea of ending any life for any reason is for me just not something I want done in my name."  I Googled, and sure enough Raushenbush supports abortion rights. You don't want "any life" ended in your name?  You don't know what a life that is ended might lead to, Rev. Raushenbush?

Shielding Islam Again: Nets Ignore Boston Bomber’s Radical Faith
By Matt Philbin | January 6, 2015 | 11:54 AM EST

Nearly two years ago, someone planted and detonated a bomb in the crowd at near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Three people were killed and more than 260 injured. Police killed one of the suspects in a shoot-out and, after more shooting, captured his brother in a boat in someone’s backyard.

Jury selection began yesterday in the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and ABC, CBS and NBC on Monday evening and Tuesday morning were careful to explain that, because Tsarnaev is eligible for the death penalty, selection is likely to be long and painstaking.

CBS Notices Boston Marathon Bombing Conviction; ABC, NBC Out to Lunch
By Matthew Balan | July 22, 2014 | 4:34 PM EDT

Monday's CBS Evening News was the only Big Three morning or evening newscast to cover the conviction of Azamat Tazhayakov, who was found guilty of obstructing the investigation into the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Jurors also convicted Tazhayakov of taking part in a "conspiracy with his off-campus roommate to hide incriminating evidence in the days immediately after the attack," as reported by the Boston Globe on Monday.

Anchor Scott Pelley gave a 19-second news brief to the conviction of the former student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth: [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]

FNC Calls Out Democratic Hypocrisy Over Fundraising Off Benghazi
By Brad Wilmouth | May 12, 2014 | 9:56 AM EDT

On Monday, May 12, FNC's Fox and Friends exposed Democratic hypocrisy in accusing Republicans of trying to raise money off the deaths of Americans from the Benghazi attack, when Democrats themselves have a history of linking fundraising to deadly events.

Referring to Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy explaining this hypocrisy on the previous day's Fox News Sunday, FNC co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck began listing the history of Democrats:

NY Times Pities Boston Bomber, Finds No Connection to Jihad, Yet Op-ed Finds Extremist Pattern Among Vets
By Clay Waters | April 16, 2014 | 11:55 PM EDT

The New York Times resolutely refused to see a pattern of jihad on the part of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in its sympathetic front-page Tuesday profile of his prison conditions. Yet on Wednesday the Times ran an op-ed that used an anti-Semitic killer in Kansas to represent the hidden domestic terror threat of military veterans.

First, try not to shed a tear for Tsarnaev as you read the opening strains of Michael Wines and Serge Kovaleski's Tuesday story, "Marathon Bombing Suspect Waits in Isolation."

On Boston Bombing Anniversary, CNN Analyst Says U.S. Right-Wing Extremists Kill More Than Jihadists
By Kristine Marsh | April 15, 2014 | 4:13 PM EDT

Are “right-wing” extremists more dangerous than Al-Qaeda terrorists? According to CNN’s National Security Analyst Peter Bergen, they are. In a CNN commentary posted yesterday Bergen wrote, “U.S. right wing extremists [are] more deadly than jihadists.” He also also happens to be a director for the George Soros-funded liberal New America Foundation. What a coincidence.

 Bergen claimed that “white supremacists, anti-abortion extremists and anti-government militants have killed more people in the United States than have extremists motivated by al Qaeda’s ideology.” He cited a New America study which counted 34 people killed by right-wing extremist acts and just 23 people killed by Al Qaeda-linked terrorism, after 9/11. Why start there? Wouldn’t the 2,977 people killed that day by jihadists skew those findings somewhat?

One Year Ago, Media Jumped to Blame Boston Bombing on 'Anti-Government' 'Extreme Right'
By Scott Whitlock | April 15, 2014 | 11:28 AM EDT

On April 15, 2013, one year ago, two Muslim extremists planted bombs at the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring 264 others. This tragic event was sadly exploited by some in the media who quickly speculated that "extreme right" and "anti-government" individuals could be responsible for the mayhem. [See below for a round-up, including video, of the worst examples of journalistic malpractice.]

The morning after the attack, Good Morning America's Pierre Thomas narrated a segment with an on-screen graphic wondering, "Could this be homegrown terror?" Thomas noted that April 15th was only four days before the anniversaries of the bloody end of the Branch Davidian standoff and the Oklahoma City bombing. Regarding the date the attack occurred, GMA guest Mark Potok linked, "The real Patriots Day is April 19th. That is the date that counts for people on the extreme right in the United States."  [MP3 audio here.] 

NBC's 'Meet the Press' Makes, Breaks Promise to Inspiring Marathon Bombing Survivor
By Tom Blumer | April 12, 2014 | 12:47 AM EDT

Adrianne Haslet-Davis is a Boston Marathon bombing survivor who insists that she not be called a "victim" ("I am not defined by what happened in my life. I am a survivor, defined by how I live my life").

The Boston Herald writes that "Haslet-Davis became a symbol of Boston Strong when she made good on her vow to dance again in a front-page Herald story last year. This past month she performed a rumba on a bionic leg designed by an MIT brainiac who is himself a double amputee. The performance was at a TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference in Vancouver." On Friday, NBC News, which three weeks ago posted a story on Haslet-Davis's first post-bombing performance, deliberately and by its own admission broke a promise it had made to her as a condition for her appearance in a taped panel discussion in advance of the network's next Meet the Press program.

MSNBC's Wagner, Panel Conflate Boston Bombings with ObamaCare Opposition, Libertarianism
By Andrew Lautz | August 16, 2013 | 2:34 PM EDT

MSNBC host Alex Wagner appeared to tie Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev to ObamaCare opposition and libertarianism on Wednesday’s Now, with liberal guests Jared Bernstein and Mark Potok taking part in the anti-conservative argument. Wagner suggested that ObamaCare “extremism would seem to be of a piece with this radicalized rhetoric” that influenced the terrorist Tsarnaev.

Bernstein, a former economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, argued that one “could draw a line” connecting the terrorist attacks in Boston to “vehement opposition” to the president’s health care law. And Mark Potok, of the Southern Poverty Law Center, added:

In WaPo Column, Georgetown Prof Equates Defending Tsarnaev, Ariel Castro ... and George Zimmerman
By Tom Blumer | July 27, 2013 | 3:05 PM EDT

Abbe Smith, who has written an almost 1,500-word column for the Washington Post, is described as "a professor of law and the director of the Criminal Defense & Prisoner Advocacy Clinic at Georgetown University."

The title of her column is "What motivates a lawyer to defend a Tsarnaev, a Castro or a Zimmerman?" -- as if defending an alleged terrorist killer of three and maimer of hundreds, a imprisoner of multiple women and killer of pre-born babies (who yesterday pleaded guilty to the former and will escape the death penalty), and a man who killed an assailant only because he thought he would die if he didn't are all virtually equally problematic. Excerpts follow the jump.