Last Saturday, Jan. 18, four different Fox News anchors took time out of their normal programs to utter a word not often heard on mainstream television: “Sorry.”
The apology from the most watched cable news network in the U.S. was in reference to their repeated discussion of so-called “no-go zones” as a contributing factor to the terrorist attacks on the Charlie Hebdo headquarters and a kosher grocery store in Paris earlier this month.
In a Jan. 12 article on the Fox News website titled “Paris attacks prompt fears France’s Muslim ‘no-go’ zones incubating jihad,” the no-go-zones are described as “breeding grounds for radicalism” where “poor and alienated Muslims have intimidated the government into largely ceding authority over them.”
According to Fox anchors and their recruited anti-terrorism experts, these are the areas where terrorists such as the Kouachi brothers who attacked the Charlie Hebdo headquarters in Paris are able to thrive.
This type of anti-Islamic analysis is not uncommon at Fox News and across much of mainstream American media, but these particular comments received intense international criticism.
British Prime Minister David Cameron called one of Fox’s so-called terrorist experts a “complete idiot” for stating that the city of Birmingham is “totally Muslim where non-Muslims just simply don’t go,” while the French TV station Canal+ mocked Fox by visiting the no-go zones and interviewing ordinary French citizens. Unfortunately Fox’s absurd comments, deemed laughable by our Western European allies, were widely accepted here in the U.S.
In one of the four apologies last Saturday, Fox anchor Julie Banderas explained that the network had “made some regrettable errors on air regarding the Muslim population in Europe” and that “there is no formal designation of these zones.”
Certainly a commendable act, but what is more regrettable than their failure to sufficiently check their facts about the no-go zones is their propensity to leap headlong into support of such a story simply because it substantiates their argument against Islam.
But when a major news station inaccurately reports information that ostracizes a religion practiced by nearly a quarter of the world, is sorry really enough?
Continuing this kind of reporting will only contribute to the growing divide currently isolating Islamic groups throughout the Western world.
Following the conclusion of the nationwide manhunt for the perpetrators of the Jan. 7-9 attacks, news stations from Fox News to CNN to MSNBC attempted to explain how and why these incidents took place in a Western nation that is not too unlike the U.S.
They began searching for someone or something to blame, and inevitably came up with the Islamic religion as they so often have in the decade and a half since the 9/11 terror attacks.
These anti-Islamic sentiments in TV journalism are manifested in a variety of ways.
Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly seems to enjoy quoting scripture from the Quran that undeniably encourages a Jihad against the Western world.
Fellow Fox News anchor Sean Hannity’s favorite pastime appears to be moderating debates between himself, an anti-Islamic guest and a pro-Islamic or Muslim guest whose comments are often drowned out by Hannity’s own raised voice.
Other less prominent anchors often supplement their opinions with imported experts on terrorism, Middle Eastern politics or military strategy, but the message is quite consistent: Islam promotes violence, Islam poses a threat to the Western world and Islamic extremism is an Islamic problem that the Muslim community has failed to snuff out.
Fox News is not alone in mainstream TV’s so-called “Islamophobia.” A CNN interview from Sept. 2014 with Reza Aslan, a prominent Muslim author, religious scholar and professor of creative writing at University of California, Riverside, has resurfaced since the Charlie Hebdo attacks.
In the nine-minute interview, Aslan is visibly frustrated and baffled as his interviewers continuously cite human rights violations as problems of the Muslim religion despite his cited evidence of more regional or national causes that are unassociated with religion in any way.
According to a 2014 study by the American Press Institute, 87 percent of Americans watch TV to follow the news, leaving a tremendous amount of responsibility on networks to distribute accurate information to the American people. Meanwhile, the Pew Research Center found that only 38 percent of Americans know a Muslim individual personally.
So, 62 percent of Americans are left to form their opinion of a group of people comprising nearly a fourth of the world population — not to mention more than two and a half million Americans — based on what they see, read or hear. It should not come as a surprise then that a recent study from Pew assessing American feelings towards religious groups found that Muslims are the least trusted crowd in the country, and coming in just behind atheists and far behind Jews, Catholics and Evangelical Christians.
Islamophobic reporting is unfortunately not the only form of misinformation represented in major news networks either. In 2014, Ebola, race riots and tensions with Russia briefly took the spotlight from Islamic extremist groups as the premier threat to America.
And yet, here we all are happily on our way in 2015. Where is the apology for Dr. Craig Spencer, who was accused of endangering thousands of New York City residents by riding on a subway with a fever after returning from West Africa? And what about an “our bad” to the African American community for the blatant racism often exhibited during coverage of nationwide protests that followed the Michael Brown and Eric Garner grand jury decisions?
At some point, news networks and media outlets of all forms must be held accountable for the information they present to the American people. The government has no control over what stories the media covers, how the news is presented or in what way opinions are conveyed. And rightfully so: freedom of speech is one of the founding tenets of our country and should most certainly be defended at all costs. The Charlie Hebdo attacks only serve to reinforce this necessity.
Fox News is proud to provide the forum for individuals with conservative or right-wing views to express their opinions, just as MSNBC is proud to do the same for the left. Without this type of platform for national debate, freedom of speech certainly loses some of its meaning.
However, when the opinions of these groups begin to infringe upon the ability of U.S. citizens to live freely and speak freely, action — beyond retrospective apologies — must be taken. And in this free, ratings-driven industry, it is we, the viewers, who must hold the networks accountable for how they present information; we choose to support or counter their opinions, watch or not watch their programs, accept or reject their apologies.
The presentation of Muslims as a threat to Western society does nothing to alleviate the threat of Islamic extremists. Continuing this kind of reporting will only contribute to the growing divide currently isolating Islamic groups throughout the Western world.
Fox’s apology therefore should be directed at the entire Islamic community for inciting unnecessary distrust of a peaceful religious group and, frankly, other news stations should follow suit.
Chris Hoover is a fifth year student in the Rollins School of Public Health from Manchester, Tennessee.
