CNN Under Fire for Omitting Key Detail About School Shooter Training Compound
CNN was under fire for omitting the words “Muslim extremists” in their report on Tuesday about the child compound case in New Mexico.
Police found 11 missing children starved and abused in New Mexico and in court documents, they reported that the men were training the children to commit mass school shootings, as reported by The Daily Caller.
On Tuesday, Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe said that he believed the men who ran the compound, Siraj Wahhaj and Lucas Morten, are “extremist(s) of the Muslim belief.”
According to Biz Pac Review, Hogrefe reaffirmed that FBI analysts also said that the suspects are “extremists of the Muslim belief.”
Wahhaj’s father also has ties to Muslim rights groups and “was an un-indicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing.”
When CNN first reported on the incident, they had the original police statement with the Muslim extremist phrase included. However, they decided to delete the phrase later on, with no editor’s note to explain that they had deleted the “Muslim” reference.
It didn’t take long for people to notice the change in CNN’s report.
I don’t know why CNN took it out of their story, but in light of today’s news, I’ll just point out that the article originally included the sheriff’s statement that the individuals were “extremists of the Muslim belief.”
Not there anymore –> https://t.co/qYTsCD0SMv https://t.co/3QPhRpoxvl
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) August 8, 2018
Here you go:https://t.co/ZbIM56Mm9m pic.twitter.com/MAKmFLA80n
— MrsIbsolm (@laurenibsolm) August 8, 2018
Many people were upset with the change, and there are many theories on why CNN decided to take it out.
People claimed it was because it didn’t fit the network’s political agenda and that they were “white-washing a terrorist training camp.”
After a few hours of people calling them out for the change, BPR reported that CNN did put the phrase back into the article, however, it was not found in the report as of Friday morning.
In a segment about the compound, CNN correspondent Scott McLean mentioned the alleged extremism of the group but downplayed it as unverified, according to The Daily Caller.
“Last week, the sheriff here, the local sheriff, said that he believed that the folks on this compound — the adults at least — were extremists of the Islamic belief, but when he was pressed on that he did not follow up,” McLean explained. “I cannot stress enough here that these people have not been charged with conspiracy to commit school shooting. … This is just one singular point in a charging document.”
The Daily Caller also noted that other media, such as NBC News, Time Magazine and CBS News failed to mention the same phrase from the police statements as well.
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