CNN Obscures Palestinian Attacker’s Identity, Again
Yet again, CNN obscures the identity of another Palestinian attacker. Yesterday evening, Bashar Masalha, a 22-year-old Palestinian from the northern West Bank, went on a stabbing spree in the mixed Arab-Jewish city of Jaffa, killing Taylor Force, and wounding several more. As of this writing, CNN’s headline about the attack is: “American fatally stabbed in Israel terror attack that wounds 10 others.”
The headline, in passive voice, fails to identify who stabbed the American, a key piece of information about the incident which was readily available. According to the time stamp, the post was last updated at 6:38 am GMT today. Some 12 hours before then, Israel police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld had already confirmed that the attacker was Palestinian.
In addition, the accompanying article buries the essential bit of information — who carried out the attack — in the 17th paragraph. The relatively few readers who make it that far learn:
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld tweeted that the attacker, a Palestinian from the West Bank, was fatally shot by police.
Then, incredibly, several paragraphs later, CNN explains that Israeli authorities blame Palestinians for a spate of terror attacks, as if it isn’t actually certain that Palestinians are responsible for the spate of terror attacks.
Finally, it should be noted, that in an earlier version of the article, the word terrorist appeared in scare quotes. (Screen capture is below.) Likewise, the original headline also referred to Taylor Force’s killer as a “terrorist,” with the qualifying quotes.
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