Boss dislikes it, expect to have your copy changed or even lose your job
Democrat Senate candidate Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed’s tweeted about 9/11. With the 25th anniversary of that day in infamy looming ahead, let’s see what he said.
In March 2020, he tweeted, “Today the 40,000th American died of #COVID19, which we didn’t know existed 6 months ago—only hit the U.S. 3 months ago. That’s like a 9/11 attack every 10 days for three months.”
On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the Muslim tweeted, “Today, I mourn the 3K lives, 6K injuries, & infrastructural devastation in NYC, perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my faith. Tomorrow, I’ll mourn ~1M lives, millions of injuries, & infrastructural devastation in 3 countries, perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my country.”
He’s allowed to say it. And CBS is allowed to report what he said.
But clutching its pearls as it headed for the fainting couch, Variety reported:
A CBS News headline accompanying a story about Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has generated significant online scrutiny, and the Paramount Skydance news outlet, once known for its reserve, appears to feel the facts presented in the work outweigh the digital opprobrium.
On Monday morning, the CBS News feed on X posted a story with the accompanying headline: “As the nation prepares to mark 25 years since Sept. 11, 2001,” the post said, “Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan, may be facing the risk of renewed scrutiny and fresh political attack.”
The Variety headline said, “CBS News’ Abdul El-Sayed Post Sparks Digital Backlash.”
Oh no. Not backlash.
Democrat Congresswoman Delia Ramirez said, “Islamophobia spewed carelessly by elected officials and the media makes us all less safe.”
Democrat Congressman Yassamin Ansari said, “What an insane, blatantly racist headline. Unreal.”
Mehdi Hasan said Bari Weiss and CBS were “super offensive and disgusting and Islamophobic” to open coverage of a potential first Muslim Democrat senator by referencing 9/11.
But wait, kids, there’s more.
The Independent in Merrie Olde England reported:
CBS News boss Bari Weiss reportedly had a direct hand in creating a headline that insinuated Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed deleted supposedly controversial tweets about the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The article, “Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s deleted tweets on Sept. 11 attacks invite scrutiny of past remarks,” was published Monday morning, and quickly condemned by some for being racist and promoting Islamophobia.
Unnamed sources later told “Status” writer Oliver Darcy that Weiss had “personally directed that the headline be tweaked to specifically mention that El-Sayed had deleted tweets referencing the September 11 terrorist attack.”
How dare a boss change something a subordinate did!
The story also said:
Weiss is accused of pushing a negative story about El-Sayed, a progressive Democratic candidate and practicing Muslim, by linking him to comments about 9/11.
Ordinarily, I would have fixed the typo and added “a” before practicing, but I want to point out what bad editing really looks like. Re-writing a headline is good editing.
Fox of course is worse in the eyes of the media.
El-Sayed is deleting tweets and posts because he knows his feelings about 9/11 and patriotism are anti-American. He has a lock on the Muslim and Arab vote in Michigan. He needs votes from the rest of Michiganders or his Michigoose is cooked.
Just remember that those dismissing what he tweeted publicly 4, 5 and 6 years ago were the same people who a decade ago were aghast at what Trump said privately 11 years prior to Election Day 2016 in the “grab them by the pussy” tape. How dare anyone suggest that a beautiful woman would allow certain liberties to be taken by a man just because he is rich, handsome and famous.
Weiss editing the headline is something I never saw in my nearly 40 years as a newspaperman—except on every day that I went to work. Was Weiss bigfooting it? Yes. But she didn’t become the Big Boss to wind up bowing to the staff.
That so many journalists are full of themselves is no surprise to my readers because they are pretty sharp. But journalists also are clueless about their place in the political sphere. Like the newspapers that so many of them toil for, they are good for lining the bottoms of bird cages but not much else.
Their take on the First Amendment is pretty small. They see it as a protection from religion that protects only Muslims and Satanists. They see it as a protection of free speech only on the left. And they see protection of a free press as applying only to them and not the man who owns the press.
Which brings me to the trio of journos Pete Hegseth fired at the Stars and Stripes. Publisher Max D. Lederer Jr., editor-in-chief Erik Slavin and reporter Lara Korte are using the First Amendment to get back their jobs. I get that we want S&S (where I learned reporting while in the Army) to be independent but we mainly want the paper to be unbiased.
Lederer, Slavin and Korte failed. They deserve unemployment.
Adam Kelly was the publisher of a weekly paper in Sistersville, West Virginia, who wrote the editorials for the conservative daily newspapers owned by the Ogden chain. (Yes, all you yinzers in Pittsburgh, the family that now owns the Pirates.) Kelly once told me that freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns the presses.
I know it is not original but nevertheless, every journalism teacher should quote him on that reality. You may be a journalist, but you are first and foremost an employee.
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This article first appeared on Don Surber’s Substack. Reprinted here with permission.
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