Falwell: Media ignored “radical Islamic terrorists ... because they are trying to keep Islam in a good light”


On the March 8 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck, Rev. Jerry Falwell baselessly suggested that 18-year-old Sulejman Talovic, who shot nine people at a Salt Lake City mall in February, was a “radical Islamic terrorist,” before adding, "[b]ut the press never mentions that -- most of the press -- because they are trying to keep Islam in a good light here in this country." In fact, media outlets have reported that Talovic is a Muslim while also reporting that authorities say there is no evidence that his faith played a part in his actions.

Talovic, a Bosnian immigrant, killed five people at Salt Lake City's Trolley Square shopping center before he was shot and killed by police. As Media Matters for America noted when right-wing radio host Michael Savage made a claim similar to Falwell's, a February 14 Associated Press article did, in fact, address the possibility that Talovic's actions were motivated by religion, terrorism, or both. The article reported that “authorities tried to figure out why a teenage Bosnian immigrant committed the rampage and how he got his hands on a gun. FBI agent Patrick Kiernan in Salt Lake City said the bureau had no reason to believe Sulejman Talovic, who was killed by police, was motivated by religious extremism or an act of terrorism.” The article also quoted Ajka Omerovic, Talovic's aunt, as saying, “We are Muslims, but we are not terrorists.”

According to a February 14 Reuters article, "[W]hen the Bosnian Serbs overran [Srebrenica] in 1995, taking away and massacring some 8,000 Muslim men and boys, Sulejman and his mother were evacuated by the United Nations and later reunited with his father." On February 15, the AP reported that after their village, Talovici, was invaded in 1993, the young Sulejman, his mother, and three siblings escaped on foot to the United Nations-protected enclave of Srebrenica.

A February 16 AP article also touched on the question of whether Talovic's actions were related to religion, noting that Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson “blasted vitriolic Internet postings and e-mails sent to newspapers that suggested the shooter was an Islamic terrorist, calling such criticism from 'fact-free people' unjustified and outrageous.”

From the March 8 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck:

FALWELL: And since 9-1-1, we've had about a dozen little incidents -- not little for those who were killed -- such as the 18-year-old boy in Salt Lake City who in the shopping mall killed five people. And there have been about a dozen of those incidents. All of them were radical Islamic terrorists.

But the press never mentions that -- most of the press -- because they are trying to keep Islam in a good light here in this country. And there are pros and cons on that.