My parents, active seniors who stay current on the news, were taken in by a wave of misinformation this week that had them very upset.
At first I thought they had uncharacteristically fallen for political spin from the right. Only later did I realize they were led astray by mainstream media outlets, Newsweek and The Associated Press among them, in one of the worst media gaffes of the year.
They were suckered like so many alert citizens into believing headlines about a mosque to be built at the site of the World Trade Center.
For days, the “mosque at ground zero” was the obsession of cable TV’s talking heads.
Only after their blather whipped the country into outrage did the networks, newsweeklies and other news outlets backtrack.
There is no planned mosque at ground zero.
The facts trailed the uproar by several days. Eventually we were informed that, first, the planned community center and mosque site is not at ground zero. It’s a couple of blocks away, where other mosques (along with hundreds of other buildings) already reside.
Second, the purpose of the planned development is to give voice to moderate, modern Islam as opposed to the radical strain that resulted in the horrors of 9/11. The goal is specifically to show that American Muslims are part of the community; in fact, part of the community that lost lives in 9/11. A New York imam said at the outset that the project was an effort “to push back against extremists.”
The conservative opinion makers deserve the first blame. The first use of the misnomer “ground zero mosque” was on Fox News.
Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee and other Republican stalwarts excitedly and vocally objected to the mosque idea. Huckabee, for instance, asked whether supporters of the project believe “we can offend Americans and Christians, but not foreigners and Muslims.”
For her part, Palin offered the inane tweet: “Ground Zero Mosque supporters: Doesn’t it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate” — never mind that there is no such word.
From the conservative media into the mainstream, the story and the offensive misnomer spread quickly.
But it’s too easy to pin the bad intel on the political headliners. The media picked up the handy unsupported tagline and ran with it.
Among those seeking to put the record straight, media reporter Michael Calderone noted on Yahoo that, “If built, the 13-story community center and mosque project will be one of hundreds of buildings located within blocks of ground zero — a densely populated area that already includes a couple of mosques, along with less “hallowed” institutions, like strip clubs, bars and Off Track Betting operations.”
By midweek, news organizations abandoned the tagline and turned to tracing the origins of the misguided story.
Salon offered a detailed analysis, specifying that it all began with Pamela Geller, “a right-wing, viciously anti-Muslim, conspiracy-mongering blogger, whose sinister portrayal of the project was embraced by Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post.”
By the time President Barack Obama got into the fray, with a two-parter commenting on religious freedom and, then, the wisdom of the geographic choice, some citizens had tuned out. Anger directed at him should have been aimed at the media.
Finally, the voice of reason emerged — on late-night TV.
Among the best laugh lines was Stephen Colbert’s: “Every permit granted to a mosque is one denied to an American house of worship — a mall.”
And, riskier, John Oliver’s: “There is a difference between what you can do, and what you should do. For instance, you can build a Catholic church next to a playground. Should you?”
By midweek, my parents called to say they had come around to the idea that building an Islamic center in lower Manhattan, blocks from the former site of the World Trade Center, wasn’t so bad after all. It wasn’t really a “ground zero mosque,” they had learned. The news reports they watch and read had discovered more to the story.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
