CNN Hypes 'Vanilla ISIS,' 'Yeehadist' Labels of Anti-Federal Protest

Matthew Balan | January 4, 2016
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[More in the cross-post on the MRC's NewsBusters blog.]

On the 4 January 2016 edition of CNN Newsroom, Deborah Feyerick touted how anonymous "critics" were likening Ammon Bundy's group that took over a wildlife refuge facility in Oregon to Islamist terrorists: "Everybody remembers Ruby Ridge...and the government certainly does not want something like that. But...critics are arguing that if this was another group...there are different hashtags out there now mocking this group, calling them 'Vanilla ISIS;' calling them 'Yeehadists'....if this were members of ISIS...who had taken over a facility, is it fair to say the response would, in fact, be very, very different?"

Correspondent Sara Sidner first cited such chatter on social media during her report on the armed protest: "They've been here for now two days — going into a third day — and that has a lot of folks talking on social media, as you might imagine. There's a lot of criticism — saying, well, if there were armed militia that took over, for example, another kind of government building, and they happen to be African-American; or they happen to be Muslims — that the response would be very different. We can't say that."

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