Toronto Star: A Broad Strata
Charles Johnson
Sat Jun 17, 2006 at 8:31 am PDT • Views: 541
The Toronto Star congratulates themselves for their laughably awful coverage of the Toronto terrorism arrests: TheStar.com - A difficult news story well told.
On A3 that day was a story that prompted other letters. “The ties that bind 17 suspects?” was the headline. An introductory paragraph said: “Aside from the fact that virtually all are young men, it’s hard to find a common denominator” and the first paragraph of the story repeated this.
Some readers accused the Star of “political correctness gone crazy” and suggested the obvious link was religion.
After the story broke, reporters spent the next day trying to find out how the accused knew each other. Did they go to the same school, work out at the same gym, live on the same street?
The story did mention an Islamic centre and referred to an unnamed imam.The Star had reported that the investigation began when police found Internet traffic from local teens “vowing to attack at home, in the name of oppressed Muslims.” But at that early point, reporters had not confirmed that each of the accused was Muslim.
Frank says: