Falsely blaming Muslims for Oklahoma City drew no similar media reckoning

Evidence

When news first broke of an explosion at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, CBS News dispatched its terrorism expert, Steven Emerson, to the site to offer his analysis for viewers. Emerson reported: “This was done with the attempt to inflict as many casualties as possible. That is a Middle Eastern trait. Oklahoma City, I can tell you, is probably considered one of the largest centers of Islamic radical activity outside the Middle East.” Other television news networks and newspapers, including ABC News, the Chicago Tribune, and Newsday, echoed Emerson’s analysis and insisted that the bombing bore the marks of Middle Eastern terrorism. Although the mainstream media assumed that it was only a matter of time before investigators confirmed the identities of the Muslim culprits, as it turned out, the perpetrator was Timothy McVeigh, a white, Christian American and Gulf War veteran with strong antigovernment convictions. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 504 (#expands, via linked claim)

So inflamed against Islam has the media environment in the United States and the West generally become that when the Oklahoma City bomb attack took place in April 1995 the alarm was sounded that the Muslims had struck once again; I recall (with residual chagrin) that I must have received twenty-five phone calls that afternoon from newspapers, the major networks, and several resourceful reporters, all of them acting on the assumption that since I was from and had written about the Middle East that I must know something more than most other people. The entirely factitious connection between Arabs, Muslims, and terrorism was never more forcefully made evident to me; the sense of guilty involvement which, despite myself, I was made to feel struck me as precisely the feeling I was meant to have. The media had assaulted me, in short, and Islam — or rather my connection with Islam — was the cause. — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam, 10 (#expands, via linked claim)

Never was their prejudice and ignorance more in evidence than when in the immediate aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing (April 1995) they leaped collectively to the conclusion — led by instant “experts” like Steven Emerson — that Islamic terrorists were to blame, and they repeated their allegations, albeit on a smaller, quieter scale after the TWA Flight 800 disaster in July 1996. — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam, 160 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The media blamed Islamic terrorists for Oklahoma City before evidence appeared — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam: How the Media and the…, 160; Mainstream media misattributed the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing to Muslims. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 504; The Oklahoma City bombing was immediately blamed on Muslims before evidence emerged — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam: How the Media and the…, 10 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• The media blamed Islamic terrorists for Oklahoma City before evidence appeared #expands (0.95) — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam, 160
• Mainstream media misattributed the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing to Muslims. #expands (0.95) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 504
• The Oklahoma City bombing was immediately blamed on Muslims before evidence emerged #expands (0.95) — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam, 10