Who Killed Five Yesterday? CNN Won’t Say “Palestinian attacker.”
In two articles about terror attacks that killed an American teen and several others yesterday, CNN assiduously avoided telling readers the identity of the attacker.
This seems to be a selective problem at CNN. The network had no trouble mentioning that “Jewish extremists” were thought to be responsible for a deadly arson in Duma recently. And after a gang of teens beat up a Palestinian in Jerusalem several years ago, CNN mentioned Jewishness no less than six times in one article.
But when Palestinian terrorists killed five people yesterday in Tel Aviv and the West Bank, CNN.com seemingly decided its reporting, and its readers, don’t need such detail. Having initially ignored the two fatal attacks, the news organization finally covered the story. But it pinned the West Bank attack on an “unidentified gunman.” And about the Tel Aviv attack, it mentioned only that “two people” — meaning two Jews — “were killed,” with the passive voice covering up the Palestinian identity of the attacker.
If the Jewish identity of attackers was relevant in those earlier reports — it was relevant, and was one of the basic five Ws of the story — then the Palestinian identity of yesterday’s attackers are equally relevant.
See also: “CNN Dances Around Palestinian Violence, Refuses to Identify Culprits,” Oct. 14, 2015
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