Accuracy in Media Editor Roger Aronoff was a guest analyst on “Coast to Coast” with host Neil Cavuto on the Fox Business Network twice this month. The topic the first time was the politicized news coverage in the wake of the San Bernardino, California terrorist attack that killed 14.
Before the facts were in, The New York Daily News ran the cover story that “God Isn’t Fixing This,” lambasting Republican presidential candidates for failing to connect that attack to gun control initiatives. The Daily News cast it as hypocritical for these candidates to say that their prayers were with the families of the victims.
“The headline maybe should be, ‘What new gun law might have prevented this?’” said Aronoff on Cavuto’s show.
He added that “It’s a human expression of condolences to say, ‘My prayers are with you.’ President Obama said something very similar: ‘Our heart goes out to the victims and their families.’ That’s such a natural thing to say.”
“Clearly, [the San Bernardino attack] was an act of Islamic jihadism.”
The Daily News wasn’t the only mainstream media organization that raced to find its own convenient political explanation for the attacks. “MSNBC and Bloomberg put it in the context of a Planned Parenthood facility nearby, and they were immediately looking at that as a possible motive here,” said Aronoff, calling this attack “the essence of terrorism.”
“Look, anyone who’s now at their office Christmas party in any-town USA will be thinking about [this as a terror attack],” he said. “They’ll look a little more carefully at the people in the room with them, and wonder what they’re thinking.”
You can view the segment here:
