Three days ago in Buffalo, NY, Muzzammil Hassan sawed the head off his wife Aasiya Hassan — we’re going to say it — Islamofascist-style in a gift to the press that’s normally insatiable for this type of story. Ironically, Mr. Hassan is the founder of Bridges TV network, formed to improve the image of Muslim-Americans in the U.S. So where’s the story?
Conservative commentators knew there would be just token press, and they were proven right. If it were a Christian (or any non-media-protected group), it would have been all over television and print media. But, just three days out, and we see that not only does the poor wife no longer have a head, but the story has no legs.
Detractors will say there was plenty of coverage, citing the newspapers in which a story appears or the TV network where they heard the story, but that’s meaningless. What page? How many column inches? How much time on TV? Any followup? Was the Muslim style beheading downplayed?
So we ask you, our readers, to help us out by posting comments here, indicating where you did or did not see coverage, and providing any further details you can share. And also, if you know of any great articles with details on this lack of coverage, please feel to enter the links (don’t worry if your comment gets temporarily moderated if there are many links in it).
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The story has several hooks the blabbers usually glom onto, e.g., a beautiful young mother of small children murdered, a cable TV exec, St. Valentine’s Day irony and geographic proximity to another major story (Continental 3407).
Why it hasn’t gotten the JonBenet/Caylee/Natalie treatment and six gretamonths of coverage is above my paygrade.
I don’t really watch much tv news… mostly internet and blogs… so I saw it everywhere.. it was even front page on digg for a while yesterday…
Nothing in the K.C. Star or the local TV news.
This stort didn’t appear anywhere. And, it shouldn’t. Those people have a different culture.
Their wives know that they can be treated badly, so it’s their fault for marrying them.
Their culture is just as good as ours. We mustn’t criticize any part of it, because that would make us appear to think we’re better, and that would be an actual crime against humanity.
Sure, we may think its wrong to cut off our wife’s head, but, to them, it’s all right.
It’s their business.
In our local paper The Tribune in San Luis Obispo, CA (county population over 400,000), did not publish it. Just searched the site (I don’t pay for that rag), and their Section 1 is for national news. It’s like the Israeli/Palestinian issue: they never say that Israel is bombarded daily by rockets, but when Israel retaliates, it’s a story and they don’t use the word retaliate.
phuknjrk: Of course you saw it on Digg and on blogs. That’s because the bloggers must do the work the traditional media is no longer doing.
timmytanker: I assume (hope) you are merely being satirical.
I just searched Google News and Yahoo News to see what papers have picked this up. Well, here is a list of the the newspapers:
Boston Herald
The Buffalo News
New York Post
Sun Times Examiner
Toronto Star
That’s it. I also went to some large newspapers to searched them individually.
I have not been watching the TV news shows. Any word on them?
A search of The Old Gray Hag = 0
here ya go-
http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2009/02/15/66505.html
Thanks John. But I’m actually looking for stories that talk about the lack of coverage by the mainstream media.
By the way, there was no mention of this story on The Drudge Report, Reuters, UPI, the Ass. Press, or anywhere else I could find.
You’re right! It was not on Drudge. I’m surprised.
Not only was it not covered in the national news, but even one of Buffalo’s major news outlets didn’t cover it! I live just over the border in PA and regularly listen to the University of Buffalo’s NPR affiliate (WBFO). I never heard this story on the air. I just finished searching their website and checking a list of all the WBFO stories aired in the last week. There was not a single mention of this murder.
Shameful
I sent The Buffalo News link to Drudge Saturday morning. I live in the Bflo area and heard about it at work.
This is the first I heard of it. Did Fox News forget to report it?
There is nothing in the BBC site or archive.
Is the reason for the lid fear or a sympathy for the islamoragers. Neither reflects my conception of Journalism.
Lucille,
You are not alone. Today I was at a 5K and I mentioned the subject to several people. Not one had heard of it.
Let’s start a campaign to tell all our friends. Send the URL ( http://www.ihatethemedia.com/buffalo-beheading-not-covered-in-press ) to your entire email mailing list and have them send it to theirs. Ask them to post their comments here in this thread about if they had heard it in their news stations? Or anywhere else besides the bloggers.
If you have a Twitter account you can do it there to, or at any of your social networking sites.
By the way, anyone that wants to track the comments on this particular post can do so with this RSS feed:
http://www.ihatethemedia.com/buffalo-beheading-not-covered-in-press/feed
well no are you go sky news the 5 news everday.
sky news the same 5 news everday.
Bumped into the story off a blog. Just the chirp of cricketts out here in Oregon.
This is the first I’ve heard of it and only because a yahoo group forwarded it to me.
No article outside of blogs on the difficulty in getting this thing published. THe British are reporting it now as well as Fox News. THe BRits do not metion lack of publicity at al and are very apologetic. No mention of honor killing. I personally contacted Drudge 4 times about their little omission. No response.
I called the NY Post reporter to complain that he never let the words honor killing go past his lips. He even distorted the police quote by adding that anyone can be guilty of murder. He wants us to make nice and not conclude that this little murder was an honnor kiling attributable to an incurably violent cancer called Islam.
I live in Cleveland and I have not seen or heard anyone about this, other than on web blogs.
The Arizona Republic (Arizona’s largest daily newspaper) in Phoenix made no mention of it, none. In Irony, earlier this month, one of their editorial cartoonists had a GOP member beheading a college student go get his view across [about] how he feels the GOP addresses education. The Arizona Daily Star (Arizona’s second largest newspaper) in Tucson had nothing on it. I saw nothing on the TV news where I watch NBC begrudgingly. The fact is, if I hadn’t been listening to Limbaugh on my drive home I wouldn’t have known this even happened thanks to the inclinations of Today’s mainstream press. There’s no question there would have been huge, in your face, multi-day coverage had an Evangelical or other flavor of Christian having done this. Islam is not the only world religion where the life of a woman is unimportant, and in some of those cultures death ends at birth because the baby is not male. It is fair to say Islam is a culture of death and also fair to take note that the religious leaders in Islam never come foreword and speak of this behavior as outrageous. Behind closed doors the most zealous of these leaders fan the flames of intolerance and hatred which are closely followed by calls for death. This killer was a guy who had beaten and abused his wife, and his religion would detest her behavior for humiliating him; she after all is the only criminal involved; in cutting off her head he was merely applying justice.
timmytanker> Drudge did mention it, that you didn’t see it was probably a function of timing.
Well, well, well, CNN finally put up article up on the story.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/16/buffalo.beheading/index.html?eref=rss_to
Only five days late.
We can’t criticize another culture when they commit murder?????? Are you on something? We do have a better culture, a 1000 times better. Lets hope it can survive the Obama years. Try him in a court of law and right to Dr Strangelove for a quick injection. I think timmytanker has OD’ed on Koolaid. Please seek some help!
http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/581540.html
Updated: 02/17/09 07:54 AM
Possibility of ‘honor killing’ mulled in Orchard Park slaying
Estranged husband charged with murder
…
“While Muslim leaders have urged against applying cultural stereotypes to the crime, advocates for women linked the killing to attitudes in Muslim societies.
“This was apparently a terroristic version of honor killing, a murder rooted in cultural notions about women’s subordination to men,” said Marcia Pappas, New York State president of the National Organization for Women.
She decried the scant national media attention paid to the story, which broke the same day as the commuter plane crash that killed 50 people in Clarence.
While domestic violence affects all cultures, Muslim women find it harder to break the silence about it because of a stigma, she said.
“Too many Muslim men are using their religious beliefs to justify violence against women,” she said.”
…
So let’s see if I say I have a way of life where it is ok to kill you that would be ok because of course no one has any business criticizing me because of course there is the culture difference. No wonder the world is in trouble. Total complete lack of morality anymore.
Dallas Morning News reported it on Feb 17th & 19th. They do bring up the point of Honor Killing.