***To read the full blog, please check out the complete post on NewsBusters***
On Wednesday, New Mexico prosecutors appeared to have dropped the ball as a group of suspected Muslim extremists were released on a technicality. Despite a dead three-year-old child being found in their compound, 11 starved children, and claims they were being trained to carry out school shootings, five suspects were let go all because prosecutors missed a crucial deadline. It was shocking and terrifying news, but it apparently didn’t deserve any airtime on CBS Evening News.
Instead of reporting on the bungled court case, CBS thought it was more important to spend one minute and 43 seconds reporting on French and English fishermen fighting over the scallop fishing grounds in the English Channel. ABC’s World News Tonight downplayed the release, dedicating only 25 seconds to it.
This omission by CBS came after their previous reports refused to note how law enforcement described all the suspects as “Muslim extremists”. And they went to great lengths to avoid even alluding to Islam being involved in the horrific case. In a report on August 13, they described the Qurans authorities found littered throughout the compound as just “books written in Arabic”. They also described the “exorcism” the young boy allegedly died during as a “religious” ritual.
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