On Christmas day a Houston mosque was set on fire. The predictable and immediate judgements by media on the Left came fast and furious until the person who started the fire was apprehended.
37 year-old Gary Moore was arrested on Wednesday and taken into custody. Gary Moore was a regular attendee at the mosque and a Muslim.
Suddenly the narrative that had been building steam at left-wing media sites like Salon, where I imagine cheering, hugs, and hopes that a crazed fundamentalist southern Christian was surely be the culprit, was dashed. Salon immediately deleted the entire article. Later, after other media outlets noticed the missing article and began writing about it, Salon reposted the article with the new information.
Salon writer Ben Norton, author of the article, had prematurely insinuated that the fire was a result of Islamophobia. Even in the revised version Norton did his best to maintain the “America, especially Texas, hates Muslims” theme of his story. Norton called the new information that a Muslim had actually started the fire a “twist” and then continued to insinuate that Texans and Americans in general hated Muslims and anti-Muslim rhetoric from “right-wing politicians” was gaining steam.
Poor Ben Norton. I hope someone was with him to provide first aid and comfort when his “twist” on a legitimate news story blew up in his face.
This is why journalism in this country is gasping for breath. It is all but dead.
