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Fox News Still Gets It Wrong

American news media are misleading the country about the true threat of radical Islam.

by: barrett kalellis | published: 03 14, 2010

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Before and even after 9/11, the American people are still not being well-served by the national news media when it comes to purveying accurate information about the threat that radical Islam represents to the U.S. and other countries around the world.

The primary reason for this is the widespread ignorance on the part of reporters and pundits about the religion itself and the larger political ideology that it masks, along with the oppressive fog of political correctness that prevents even knowledgeable people from expressing unpopular opinions, if they have them.

Myths about Islam are rampant in our society because learning about the subject has been pushed to the back burner on the part of the public, either because of lack of interest or sheer laziness. For news reporters and public commentators to reveal such an ignorance is not only shameful, it is a primary causative factor for why the public remains ill-informed.

I was particularly shocked to hear the March 8 discussion about Geert Wilders on Fox News’ “Special Report With Bret Baier,” with pundits Bill Kristol, A.B. Stoddard and Charles Krauthammer. Wilders is the outspoken member of the Dutch Parliament who has drawn his countrymen’s attention to the dangers that Islam presents to the Netherlands and Europe, and is now on trial in a kangaroo court for inciting hatred.

Most disappointing was Krauthammer, a brilliant thinker who is always the smartest in any panel he is on. In trying to paint Wilders as a demagogue, he claims that the Dutchman is “extreme, radical and wrong.” Krauthammer goes on to make a distinction between Islam and “Islamism,” which he defines as “an ideology of a small minority which holds that the essence of Islam is jihad, conquest, forcing people into accepting a certain very narrow interpretation.” He went on to “prove” this by noting that since the majority of Muslims are not “Islamists,” then the fault lies with the minority of radical extremists and their screwy interpretation.

This claim is flat-out wrong, and if Krauthammer had actually read the primary Islamic texts – the Koran, the Hadith and the Sunnah – he would understand that the supremacy of Islam over all other religions and the elevation of worldwide Islamic sharia law lie at the very heart of Islamic imperatives and teaching.

Whether the majority of the world’s Muslims choose to become jihadists has no bearing on what the religion teaches – it merely shows that not everyone chooses the way of jihad. What Muslims believe, and what they choose to do, are two separate things.

Even if the articulate and analytical Krauthammer doesn’t want to read the primary Islamic texts, or secondary books on the matter, he could listen to those Muslims who have defected from or spoken out against Islam – at great danger to their own lives – who could set his head straight on exactly what it is that Islam teaches and what Muslims believe. This would include people like Tashbih Sayyed, Ibn Warraq, Nonie Darwish, Walid Shoebat, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and most recently, Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of a founder of Hamas.

Kristol and Stoddard fared no better than Krauthammer. They are all of the belief that there is a distinction between Islam and the actions of jihadists, as if there is some big, obvious contradiction between the two. There isn’t. They are one and the same. The jihadists themselves tell us that, and they base their beliefs upon Islamic teaching. Why do American journalists and politicians from the president on down all tell us that the radicals are “perverting” Islam, when they know nothing about it first-hand?

One often hears the question, “Why don’t the Muslims in the U.S. and in other countries raise their voices in protest against the jihidists? Or against honor killings? Or against the subjugation of women?” They don’t because their religion teaches otherwise. The small minority who do have been threatened by their fellow Muslims.

Fox News opinion show big guns like Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity are likewise clueless about Islam, to varying degrees. O’Reilly is a self-described anti-intellectual and pontificator who prefers to see matters only through his prism of common sense. This fails him, however, when it comes to Islam, since he has no understanding of the subject, and he is too lazy to read any books about it. His MO is to have his staff prepare short briefing papers for him. That’s about the extent of his preparation for everything.

Thus when he has Muslim advocates on his program, like spokemen from the fifth-column group CAIR, O’Reilly cannot carry on any kind of enlighted discussion because he knows nothing whereof he speaks, and he is unable to challenge the veracity of his opponents. He is also unaware of the subversive activities they engage in.

Sean Hannity works much harder to educate himself than does O’Reilly, but even he has fallen into the “perversion of Islam” trap. However, last week he interviewed Mosab Hassan Yousef, who told him exactly what the Koran teaches, so maybe there is hope for Hannity.

Roger Ailes should insist that his news anchors, reporters and prime time opinion makers read some primers on Islam. It would save his personnel the embarrassment of looking and sounding unprepared and uninformed on the air, and perhaps help them better to fulfill Fox News’ still-important mission of “looking out for the folks.”