Friday, 6 November 2009

A shooter's religion is only relevant when he's Muslim

A shooting at an office block in Florida comes one day after the shooting at an army base in Texas. Here's how the Mail is currently covering the two stories:

So while the religion of the first shooter is considered so important it makes the headline, the religion of the second is not mentioned at all.

Presumably, they don't think 'Jason Rodriguez' sounds like a Muslim name. And therefore, they don't give a damn what religion he is.
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6 comments:

  1. Anonymous6 November 2009 at 20:24

    Bastards.

    ReplyDelete
  2. PH6 November 2009 at 20:34

    To be fair, while I don't doubt the Mail would mention if a killer is Muslim whether it's relevant or not, it seems quite likely to be relevant in this case.

    All other news outlets are saying he's Muslim too.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Al6 November 2009 at 21:33

    It could be bull, but he is reported as shouting "Allahu Akbar" as he opened fire and had apparently praised suicide bombers in a blog. I'm afraid to admit it, but his religion DOES seem to be relevant.

    ReplyDelete
  4. MacGuffin6 November 2009 at 22:07

    Reports from the BBC, New York Times and Guardian suggest he was terrified of being deployed and had been seriously harassed for his religion. So yes, of course, religion may well play a part in this somewhere. But perhaps not in the way the Mail would like to think.

    But the Mail automatically makes his religion the important issue, the identifier. Whereas in other cases, such as this one - http://bit.ly/262uMZ - where a soldier shot his colleagues, that shooter's religion isn't mentioned anywhere.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Crispin Fisher7 November 2009 at 09:06

    Can't remember reading the headline. 'Methodist GP kills over two patients' when Harold Shipman was on trial for his crimes.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Huma Shah7 November 2009 at 14:03

    On one forum, a poster has written: "pakistani sounding name. from sindh?" (comment number #4 here: http://cricketfansforum.net/showthread.php?t=8203).

    How some would love that to be true of the Florida shooter, inexplicably ignored in this morning's LBC radio news broadcast at 10am (while Fort Hood's was not).

    ReplyDelete

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