Investigative Project on Terrorism -- The New York Times' Flawed NYPD Coverage

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In a front-page story on Tuesday discussing the documentary film, "The Third Jihad," and its use by the NYPD in training, The New York Times once again collaborates with radical Islamists to help shape the news, says Steven Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT).

The article revealed the newspaper's bias, from the vaguely threatening headline – "In Police Training, a Dark Film on U.S. Muslims" – and by relying on those who are not simply opposed to the film, but have previously demonstrated their support of radical Islamists by both word and by association with similarly aligned groups.

In both the IPT article and accompanying video and audio tapes, some produced by IPT, all of which can be found on the IPT website (investigativeproject.org), Emerson examines the NYT piece and identifies a long list of outrageous omissions and misinformation, including:

• The Times cites the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a credible source, while continuing its policy of never mentioning that CAIR was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood, and operates as a Hamas support group.
• The newspaper also suppressed the fact that CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator 2007 Holy Land Foundation  (HLF) conspiracy trial, which resulted in the FBI cutting off all formal contact with the group. The Times also failed to report that in the HLF trial, an FBI official described CAIR as a front for Hamas.
• The Times relies primarily on two sources for comments: Zead Ramadan of CAIR-NY, and Faiza Patel, of the Brennan Center of Justice. But the article deliberately fails to mention that both of them represent organizations that have repeatedly refused to condemn Hamas and other Islamic terrorist groups or have blamed the FBI for fabricating Islamic terror plots.
• The Times failed to report that CAIR's Ramadan contributed $1,000 to Viva Palestina, an organization led by noted anti-Semite George Galloway, which supports Hamas financially and politically, in 2010.
• The Investigative Project repeatedly challenged Ramadan to condemn Hamas as a terrorist group during a forum last month in New York but as the exclusive IPT  video of the exchange reveals, Ramadan repeatedly refused.
• The Times suppressed key public facts about the militant views of  Patel of the Brennan Center  which has long been a critic of law enforcement's attempts to counter terrorism, even denouncing the NYPD's operation that resulted in the arrest of accused lone-wolf jihadist Jose Pimentel, charged with plotting to bomb U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
• The Times failed to report that Patel, on behalf of the Brennan Center, received CAIR's "Safe While Free" Award in 2009.
• The Times failed to provide any specific examples, let alone mistakes, found in the film, and instead based its demonization of the documentary largely on emails received from CAIR – correspondence the newspaper did not disclose.

For more information, see the IPT website

SOURCE The Investigative Project on Terrorism