We’re not saying the mainstream media is anxiously poised to pounce on anything and everything that President-elect Donald Trump does, but … actually, that’s exactly what we’re saying.
CNN on Tuesday afternoon posted a piece on retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s pick to be national security adviser, noting in its headline that Flynn in August called Islamism a “vicious cancer” that has to be “excised.”
That quote apparently struck CNN political reporter Sara Murray as worthy of repeating:
Something went wrong in this game of telephone, though: Islam is world’s second largest religion; Islamism is not.
I hate to nitpick you here, but "Islamism" is not a religion. It is literally Islamic terrorism. And as much as I dislike him, he's right. https://t.co/eVF6olMseQ
— Ben Howe (@BenHowe) November 22, 2016
Soooo you don't seem to know that Islamism, which is what Flynn was talking about, isn't Islam. So maybe you should apologize now. https://t.co/MQduqUTG27
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) November 22, 2016
24 minutes.
Still no correction.
This is why the media is hated. Right here. https://t.co/wxBCeif4O4
— RBe (@RBPundit) November 22, 2016
Credit Murray for acknowledging that she misinterpreted the headline. Flynn certainly isn’t beyond criticism, and his record deserves to be examined — but the media at large really needs to dial back the impulse to attack that characterized its pre-election campaign coverage.
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You're right – I should've noted that he said Islamism and I've deleted the tweet. https://t.co/XeH6GaqxII
— Sara Murray (@SaraMurray) November 22, 2016
That's terrific. https://t.co/yN6eQU07q1
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) November 22, 2016
And if you want to read Flynn's comments comparing Islamism to Nazism you can find those here… https://t.co/RgIV7HWCGr
— Sara Murray (@SaraMurray) November 22, 2016
We have to admit we’d be a little more anxious to read CNN’s coverage of “—isms” if we were certain its reporters knew what they were.
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