New York Times - Good Story Yet Facts Stretched To Times Bias

This does not diminish the fact that Dr. Sultan still is receiving death threats from the religion of peace. This magnifies the fact that the MSM is so desperate to be politically correct or to corroborate their liberalism that the facts are stretched. The MSM is more into slanting the news than they are in reporting it. Really I have no problem with that as long as the Conservative slant receives equal billing. Too often the Liberal MSM dominates the news scene. This is part of the polarization process that America is seeing. The liberal MSM VS an increasing doubting reader of the MSM slant.

---------------------------

[**SlantRight Editor: I have to post this story because I actually posted the NY Times Story in which the "Media Lies" blog is writing. I entitled it "Dr. Wafa Sultan Risks Life to Criticize Islam". That Story is Slantright.com**]

The New York Times - where lying....
Media Lies blog
March 13, 2006

....is the norm. Reader Lawrence Barnes tipped me off to this one. (I confess. I don't pay much attention to the Times any more.)

I haven't blogged about her, but a number of blogs have. Dr. Wafa Sultan, a Syrian-American, engaged in a debate on Al Jazeera with an imam and bluntly criticized Islam, claiming it was barbaric, backwards and primitive. Someone at the Times must have been tipped off to the buzz, so "reporters" were dispatched to get the story.

Here's the headline and the first two paragraphs.

For Muslim Who Says Violence Destroys Islam, Violent Threats
LOS ANGELES, March 10 — Three weeks ago, Dr. Wafa Sultan was a largely unknown Syrian-American psychiatrist living outside Los Angeles, nursing a deep anger and despair about her fellow Muslims.

Today, thanks to an unusually blunt and provocative interview on Al Jazeera television on Feb. 21, she is an international sensation, hailed as a fresh voice of reason by some, and by others as a heretic and infidel who deserves to die.

There's only one problem. Dr. Sultan isn't a Muslim and hasn't been one since she witnessed the murder of one of her college professors by Muslim terrorists. In fact, Dr. Sultan made it very clear, during the Al Jazeera show, that she is not a Muslim, stating unequivocally, "I am not a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew. I am a secular human being. I do not believe in the supernatural, but I respect others' right to believe in it."

The Times puts the quote on the second page of the story and shortens it to lessen its effect — "I am a secular human being."

Barnes believes the Times is doing this to promote the idea that there are moderate Muslims in the world.

Interpretation: the media are desperate to come up with "moderate Muslims" who will denounce the protests against those Danish cartoons. The NYT has gone so far as to create one.

I speculate briefly on the rationale behind the media lust for articulate "moderate Muslims: " this is a campaign to prevent people from seeing the Koran as the wellspring of fatwah, beheadings, terrorism and a renewed assault on Western Civilization.

I think he's on to something. The "let's all get along" crowd is well represented at the Times.