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Last Thursday, a quiet evening at home was shaken by the news of a terrible tragedy in Texas. At Fort Hood military base, a gunman opened fire and killed 13 people and wounded 31. I was shocked and saddened, angry at the person who could be this cold and vicious.
My thoughts raced to reach a reason; I sought to find something that would explain this massacre. Maybe the person was mentally disturbed? Maybe he was a criminal trying to steal something?
Wall-to-wall coverage began immediately on the television news networks; and then it happened. The name of the suspected gunman was released – Major Nidal Malik Hasan. What followed, and is still continuing, was an ugly mudslinging, dirty speculation fest where the media's deep-seated but not so hidden biases came bubbling up.
Instead of showing compassion for the dead and their families, the media launched into a vicious cycle of heartless coverage, with the criminal and his background given more importance than the crime.
At the self-proclaimed “balanced” and "most trusted name in news," CNN, Wolf Blitzer reacted to the name Nidal Malik Hasan with suspicion. He questioned the man's origins, religion and the possible influence of ideology on his crime.
When it was revealed that Hasan is a natural born American with Jordanian parents, it was not enough. Anchors who followed Blitzer, including Lou Dobbs, tried their best to paint Hasan as a "barely American" Muslim man, as if painting him as an outsider would somehow affect the gravity of his crime. Does it matter whether a mass murder is an American or a Muslim or a Hindu? He is a murderer no matter what.
Things were worse at Fox. Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reily and the gang played up the Muslim card to raise suspicions that the massacre could have been a terrorist attack, or that Hasan could be acting based on his religious convictions.
While the talking heads were busy throwing mud at Hasan's background, there was little discussion of how the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are stretching the military to the limit, the stress the men and women in the military face every day and how their families are affected by repeated deployments. They tried to gloss over these things, throwing out halfhearted statements like “the military is stretched,” and “the military needs help,” followed by long speculations as to how Hasan could be a terrorist.
The media's dishonesty could not be more apparent. They were presenting baseless speculations as part of their programming but refused to investigate the way the military is being stretched to a breaking point by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They reveled in mudslinging but refused to cover these other pressing issues. Along with dishonesty, this shows that their "love" for the military is only to attract high ratings.
CNN's Larry King hosted an Iraq war veteran who didn't flinch when openly questioning Hasan's religion, saying that religious conviction was behind the attack. He was allowed to spew hate against Muslims and King did not stop him. A former prisoner of war on the panel tried to stop him, but instead she was the one asked to stop.
Nidal Malik Hasan is a mass murderer and deserves the harshest punishment. He killed 13 innocent people and there is no justification for this random act of violence. Whether he was stressed or was being harassed are moot.
But what about the media and the way they have pushed the people onto the rollercoaster of "hate Muslims" once again. Don't they deserve to be investigated and scrutinized?
I was an idiot in 2001 for believing the media's picture of hate and rage in America. They painted this country as a place where people suspect the "outsider" and are uncomfortable with anyone with non-Christian faith. In fact the reality is much different. Shame on me if I am taken for a ride again.
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(Bhumika Ghimire is a freelance reporter. Her articles have been published at OhMyNews, NepalNews, Toward Freedom, Telegraph Nepal, Himal South Asian and ACM Ubiquity. She is also a regular contributor to News Front Weekly, in Kathmandu, and Nepal Abroad, in Washington D.C. She can be reached at bhumika_g@yahoo.com. ©Copyright Bhumika Ghimire.)
