In the print edition of the Washington Post, the headline on this (lead) story reads
Female shooter got ‘so religious’
I have been going back on what they meant. Two possibilities
1. They meant that becoming a more devout Muslim is associated with a propensity toward terrorism.
2. They meant that becoming a more fervently religious person, regardless of faith, is associated with a propensity toward terrorism.
If (1), then it seems to me that they are to some extent justifying Islamophobia.
If (2), then it seems to me that they are indicting all forms of religion.
(1) seems odd coming from the Washington Post.
(2) just seems odd. “Meghan goes to mass regularly. Watch out for her.” “Moishe has started to lay tefillin. Call the FBI.”
So I keep going back and forth.
“Malik never discussed her personal beliefs, even though professors often tried to engage students in freewheeling discussions about science, philosophy and medical ethics.” Well, at least we agreed on professors needing to quit goofing off.
They are not trying to communicate facts, but rather to modulate reader perceptions. Every reader already knows the woman was Muslim; so naming “religion” as the salient feature tends to dilute the significance of Islam, while suggesting that other religions such as Christianity are equally dangerous. It is a way of implicitly denying the dangerousness of Islam (if religion is the salient variable, then Islam is no more dangerous than Christianity or Judaism) while casting aspersions on the leading American religion, Christianity.
It is not odd when you realize the Post editors are hostile to Christianity, but not Islam; and want to make Christianity look bad while downplaying Islamic wickedness.
I take an even more cynical view. After such a dramatic and peculiar tragedy, the following issues arise:
1. Facts are rare, and mostly irrelevent to understanding the ghastly act.
2. The actual nature of motivations and mechanisms of the act have substantial political implications.
And above all, the media functions by capturing and then reselling people’s attention. Being quiet about the ghastly drama for 5 weeks while investigators laboriously first sort out what happened, following being quite for 6 years until new investigators find more data about what happened, does not serve the economic interests of any main stream publication.
If the attackers had become LESS religous, or converted to Shintoism, or become devoted pokemon collectors, all of those would be reported.
Because there’s not actually a whole lot else to report, and they literally cannot tolerate blank space.
The quote in context (online version) makes sense. The source said those words; they quoted it. Seems like reasonable journalism to me.
The print headline: I’d say they think they have an attention-grabbing quote there, and that’s the whole explanation. But the willingness of editors to base the headline off it does imply what you say (I’d go with #1 since that’s how most of us will understand it against the background of already knowing which religion).
Plus 1
I agree. However, they likely have a stack of quotes to choose from and this fits in with the narrative. Not necessarily even an agenda, but the story has to have a story, right? So, I think things slip through that the journalist doesn’t even realize their bias.
As for the editorial staff, my guess would be that they are anti-religion but pro-oppressed muslim. So, they have to thread that needle.
What about the quote about being “conservative but calm”? Being conservative makes you radical? Seems like the common denominator with Al Qaeda and ISIS even more so is religious stridence as an adjunct to gaining control of governments. If Muslims just have to evangelize without bullets there is no problem, same as socialism and fascism and Barney the dinosaur.
It looks like the headline on the story has changed to:
“From pharmacy student to suspected San Bernardino terrorist: The baffling journey of Tashfeen Malik”
Maybe you made them aware of their own bias?