CNN Hypes Muslims’ ‘Islamophobia’ Worries Over Rep. King’s Hearings
Dan Gilgoff played up the Islamic community's concerns over upcoming congressional hearings on “the radicalization of American Muslims” in a Friday article on CNN.com. Gilgoff quoted Muslims 12 times in his article, versus only 3 times for Rep. Peter King, who will be convening the hearings, and omitted mentioning actual terrorist incidents from recent years that involved native-born or naturalized Muslims. The co-editor for CNN's “Belief Blog” led his article, ” Muslims anxious, active ahead of radicalization hearings ,” by highlighting the efforts of American University Professor Akbar Ahmed, who stated, ” There is a generalized sense of Islamophobia floating around, and the hearings are not doing anything to assuage Muslim fears .” Of course, this line helps revisit the network's charge from last summer that Islamophobia is now “mainstream in America” (his colleague Don Lemon did this on Monday with a segment about a new film hoping to “clear up some of this ignorance” about Islam). Gilgoff used the “Islamophobia” term himself four paragraphs later: …King's hearings have also galvanized American Muslims, perhaps as never before, in an attempt to counter what they call a rising tide of Islamophobia , to lobby Washington about their concerns and to help shape the national narrative about their community. The efforts come a little more than six months after many Muslims were blindsided by a wave of national opposition to a proposed Islamic cultural center near New York’s ground zero last summer . The CNN writer spent the next several paragraphs lining up quote after quote from those who are spearheading these efforts: ” There was this sense that after last summer's events of needing to be more proactive in stemming this activity that stokes anti-Muslim hate ,” says Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, a national legal advocacy group. “That's why, as soon as we heard Rep. King say he planned to hold these hearings, we started coming forward to express our concerns,” Khera says…. The Council on American-Islamic Relations,
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on March 5, 2011. Filed under