By Andrew L. Jaffee

CNN is a leader of, and role model for, the very politically-correct “mainstream” media. So I was flabbergasted to read an article posted today entitled, “Barak: Israel in ‘all-out war’ with Hamas,” which didn’t refer to Hamas as “assailants,” “extremists,” “gunmen,” “insurgents,” or “militants,” but actually printed the statement, “Israel continues to strike at Hamas terrorist targets in Gaza…” Initially, I thought to myself, “Does this represent a change in editorial policies — or even attitudes — about terrorism at the media giant?” But I also felt that I should be cautious before jumping to conclusions. I took a screen-shot of the page as well as saved the article to disk. After running some errands, I returned home, turned on my laptop, and reloaded the CNN article in question. Lo and behold, CNN had redacted its original terminology, removing any mention of the word “terrorist” in reference to Hamas, changed the story’s title, but left the URL (link to the page) unchanged. In other words, it pulled a fast one on its readers.

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Here is the screen-shot of the original edition of the article which used the phrase, “Israel continues to strike at Hamas terrorist targets in Gaza…” Here is the original edition in HTML format. If you’re interested in reading the bland, sanitized, and new version of the article, click here.

Nothing has changed. CNN retains its extreme, politically-correct policies. It’s business-as-usual, just as it has been since 911, when Reuters set the tone for placating terrorists:

… Stephen Jukes, Reuters’ global head of news, decreed that the giant wire service’s 2,500 journalists should not use the T-word [terrorist] unless in a direct quote.

“We all know that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter and that Reuters upholds the principle that we do not use the word terrorist,” he wrote in an internal memo. “To be frank, it adds little to call the attack on the World Trade Center a terrorist attack.” …

“Pathetic” and “cowards” are the only words I can use to describe people like Mr. Jukes. This refusal by the “mainstream” media to label terrorists as the evil, murderous, scum they are — terrorists — exposes a great weakness of the Western World, the fear-inspired belief that crazed, homicidal dogmatists can be appeased. Political correctness only emboldens terrorists, reassuring them that they have accomplished the main goal of their terrorist acts: intimidating the survivors of terrorism.

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Related: Linguistics, Media/Blogsphere, Palestinians, Political Correctness, Terrorist Groups

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