12 August 2006

Honestly, did you have to add that detail?

The lead story on yesterday's Washington Post email bulletin was this article about the investigation that led to the arrests of alleged terror plotters in England. Aside from being a rather ordinary piece about a lengthy investigation, the article isn't really all that noteworthy, except for something the opening paragraph.
It all began with a tip: In the aftermath of the July 7, 2005, suicide bombings on London's transit system, British authorities received a call from a worried member of the Muslim community, reporting general suspicions about an acquaintance.
Did they really have to put "a worried member of the Muslim community"? Wouldn't it have simply sufficed to say that an anonymous person reported suspicions about someone they knew? Is there even any hard evidence that it was a Muslim individual who made the call? And why not just put that a neighbor or community member (without qualifiers) called in the suspicions.

Honestly, I don't know whether the Post is trying to paint all terrorists as Muslims, or demonstrate that not all Muslims are terrorists. Obviously, the former is false and I don't think that's just gist; probably they were aiming at the latter, but just did it badly. Still, I think it's a little much is all.

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