Blogger/author Tony Woodlief performs a back-of-envelope calculation of trends in the way major media outlets address Muhammad/Mohammed of Islam fame:
It seems to be the case, however, that major news outlets have begun using the honorific title far more frequently. I don’t think that’s very good journalistic practice. I mean, to 2.2 billion Christians, Jesus Christ is “Lord Jesus Christ”—but we don’t expect The Washington Post to call him that.
I decided to do a news search, a very basic one, using Google and some simple filters. Basically, I wanted to see whether mentions of Muhammad have changed in six major news organs: CBS, NBC, ABC, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. I began my search in 1998, in order to include a period when Muslim terrorists had begun more noticeably killing people worldwide, but before 9/11 and the beheading of journalist Daniel Pearl.
Woodlief searched for changes in the mention of “Prophet Muhammad” versus regular old, non-honorific “Muhammad”. His chart:
Woodlief admits there are limitations to the analysis, but it’s interesting nonetheless and fits a noticeable pattern. For instance, do not your ears perk up when you hear an athlete or celebrity mention “Christ”? But if someone says “the Prophet Muhammad” we don’t miss a beat. In his analysis Woodlief attempts to control for “lesser Muhammads” by screening articles for mentions of Islam. Between 1998 and 2011, Woodlief writes, major news outlets gave Muhammad the title of “Prophet” about 10 percent of the time (though his chart indicates a break in structural shift around 2009). This year “Prophet” precedes “Muhammad” in 67% of mentions.
I thought this might have something to do with changes in media outlets’ style guide books. It’s hard to track explicit changes recommended/forced by AP or other news outlets. But at American Thinker, Johanna Markind investigates:
The Times, the AP, and Reuters all have style manuals setting forth their policies about usage for proper names like “Jesus.” Both the Times and Reuters manuals explicitly caution against using the term “Christ” when referring to Jesus because it is a theological term, “a title non-Christians would not give him,” as Reuters’ handbook says.
Similarly, the New York Times Manual of Style and Usage does not list “Prophet Muhammad” as an acceptable usage. It says only: “Muhammad. Use this spelling for the name of the prophet of the Muslim religion.” Both Reuters and the AP Stylebook identify Muhammad as “Prophet,” but neither explicitly states whether “Prophet Muhammad” is a preferred, disfavored, or neutral usage.
The Times confirmed that its above-cited styles are current, but did not respond to an inquiry about its actual practice. The Washington Post, AP, and Reuters did not respond at all to inquiries for this article.
My other hypotheses would be that news outlets are relying on Muslims – scholars, clerics, and regular devotees – for more of their news stories.
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Simple. You become more underhanded. Instead of directly attacking Islam or Muhammad, you say “Osama bin Laden is a Trotskyite! Hell is eternal!”. After all, he wants worldwide revolution. It would cause confusion within the ranks of their Leftist friends.
I think it shows the tremendous power of making yourself feared. The Muslims do it. The media fears Islam, even the US military does; issuing apologies, tail between the legs. That showed more to me than any SEAL team 6 movie.
The liberals do exactly the same thing, as do the feminists and the Zionists. Emotion, faith and fanaticism can defeat reason.
One of the most commonplace annoing things is how all press now spells their book with “Q” and an apostrophe. Bitch please — you are writing in English. Spell it “Koran.” Do you also spell that Russain city “Mwa-skva”? no, you spell it “Moscow.”
It’s not really reverence though. Smart white people with an explorer’s spirit (thta describes me too) like to SWPL-one-up each other on their supposed inside-knowledge and being able to pass and be accepted in exotic cultures. It’s not really supplication — it’s a signaling of their explorer sophistication.
That said — if it walks like a duck… this behavior can well morph into reverence because you are, after all, using the Other’s frame. It looks like you are being reverent when you write “prophet,” even as you dont actually believe that he is a prophet. In the end, and in effect, it’s a “fake it till you make it” reverence. Next step: writign “PBUH” after his name.
Interesting aside: what if a secret subculture of tough Klansmen were discoved in uncharted Georgia? they had all of theri 9 century rites, all of thier toughness, attitude, and code of honor? No doubt an SWPL journalist would too become fascinated by them and start appropriating their habits. To show that he explores, and has inside-knowledge of, and can pass among exotic cultures.
Yes, Ryu, that is delirium. To give another example. In Utrecht, I handed out leaflets inciting Muslims against Talmudic Jews, casually mentioning extreme violence. The Muslims smelled a rat and supposed a Zionist conspiracy, but didn’t dare to harm me; That does casually mentioning extreme violence.
He should also compare the counts of “Jesus Christ – the name” versus “Jesus Christ! the profanity”, in the media.
Ryu, the military doesn’t fear islam; the politicians do (the top brass are primarily politicians, and many are cunts). You’ll never see a soldier, Marine, or any boots-on-the-ground officer of any branch, apologizing for some ‘embarrassing act’ by a colleague or Terry Jones.
Steve Earle is an interesting figure. I don’t know enough about him to make out what he is about. His Rebel Hiillbilly anthem “Copperhead Road” is inspiring in almost every line of lyrics.
And on topic, there is THIS SONG. The lyrics are also worth paying attention to. I’m curious of Ryu’s take on one or both songs.
“I think it shows the tremendous power of making yourself feared”
Yes. If only Whites would pay attention.
re: moscow. i’ve watched mexican TV (for soccer, flipping channels, whatever), and they have no problem calling our cities “Nueva York” or “Nueva Orleans”, or Germany “Alemania”. Nor do we call “Germany” Deutschland. Something i never understood: why the fuck does the rest of the world get to name a city or country they don’t even live in? If you travelled to Deutschland and asked for directions to “Munich”, you’d have no right to expect to ever find Muenchen.
One of the most commonplace annoing things is how all press now spells their book with “Q” and an apostrophe. Bitch please — you are writing in English. Spell it “Koran.” Do you also spell that Russain city “Mwa-skva”? no, you spell it “Moscow.”
Use of the apostrophe is due to transliteration between alphabets, not because they’re approximating the pronunciation of a particular non-English word on the fly.
I don’t buy it. The apostrophe does not affect the way an English-speaker pronouces the word.
PA,
if a secret subculture of tough Klansmen were discoved in uncharted Georgia? they had all of theri 9 century rites,
You actually think the Klan was in Georgia in the 9th century?
Smart white people with an explorer’s spirit (thta describes me too)
Meh…. mediocre Polish nebbish with a web-surfer’s spirit, but ok, I’ll let that one slide…. because right after you, another keyboard toughguy told a much bigger whopper :
oogenhand,
In Utrecht, I handed out leaflets inciting Muslims against Talmudic Jews,
Yeah, right.
Ryu,
I think it shows the tremendous power of making yourself feared.
Yes. Too bad no one fears white nationalists who are feverishly studying for their GED..
The full movie.
Nikos the fake Greek wonderfan of mediocre Polish dudes: maybe it was a typo of “19″. or maye it alluded to ancinet Celtic rites. I’ll leave you to wonder on this.
What about the Shriners who swear as such:
“I do hereby, upon this Bible, and on the mysterious legend of the Koran, and its dedication to the Mohammedan faith, promise and swear and vow … that I will never reveal any secret part or portion whatsoever of the ceremonies … and now upon this sacred book, by the sincerity of a Moslem’s oath I here register this irrevocable vow … in willful violation whereof may I incur the fearful penalty of having my eyeballs pierced to the center with a three-edged blade, my feet flayed and I be forced to walk the hot sands upon the sterile shores of the Red Sea until the flaming sun shall strike me with livid plague, and may Allah, the god of Arab, Moslem and Mohammedan, the god of our fathers, support me to the entire fulfillment of the same. Amen. Amen. Amen.”
I usually just refer to their God as “Allah” in a crazy Arab accent.
The deference to Islam by radical “Western” liberals is a subtle acknowledgement that both have the exact same fundamental belief, namely, desire for radical autonomy. Radical “Western” liberals desire self-annihilation (as final liberation) and the jihadist will oblige with his martyrdom to his radically autonomous god (another act of self-annihilation).
These clowns are like peas in a pod.
No no, PA. I like Nikos. I can always understand an insult.
Only conflict will make us stronger. We don’t need affirmative action handouts, handicaps or special protection. We need to become accustomed to insults, hardship and the like.
The left weakens itself by banning us from their forums, their sensitivity, their outlawing of bullying. They grow soft. Sometimes people ask me what WN can do for them. I say pain, suffering, degradation – but you’ll get stronger.
When the radical liberals in the West aren’t colluding with jihadists to maximize each others’ autonomy vis a vis the white Supremacist, they are colluding with jihadists to facilitate in the cutting of their own throats in their final act of self-annihilating “liberation.”
“Radical liberation” is the escape from “white Supremacy” whether from the jihadist perspective or the radical “white” liberal perspective.
Thordaddy, can you define or explain Supremacy?
^^^ Anon…
Jesus Christ as Perfect Man…
The Good, the True and the Beautiful…
That which is objectively and thus self-evidently Supreme to all things…
Ryu, the military doesn’t fear islam; the politicians do (the top brass are primarily politicians, and many are cunts).
I don’t believe that the politicians fear Islam either.
Rather, I suspect that what we are seeing is a battle to retain the financial power certain Muslims have because of their past near monopoly on oil. Seemingly, with certain finds in the US and with the rise of fracking there will be a re-alignment of power. The Russians, for example, are pushing extreme environmentalism on parts of Europe as a way to continue to enjoy exhorbitant revenues from energy, and I suspect that the media and certain politicians here in the US are receiving moneys to pretty up Islam.
I don’t buy it. The apostrophe does not affect the way an English-speaker pronouces the word.
The apostrophes are necessary to make sure that language is correct, depending on the transliteration system being used:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe#Use_in_transliteration
I see that you’ve probably never studied a language that doesn’t use the Western alphabet.
What kills me is that Jews will keep voting for Obama at a 75% clip even though the Democratic party pulled out the “Jerusalem is the capital of Israel” proclamation out of their platform during the DNC. (now they’ve backtracked on that)
Meanwhile, those people that the Jews absolutely hate (Southern Conservatives) will continue defending Israel like they would their own family.
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@ Camlost
And the best part is that soon, that fact will literally kill you
I see that you’ve probably never studied a language that doesn’t use the Western alphabet.
Does русский and 한 국 count?
The apostrophes are necessary to make sure that language is correct
No they are not. Your argument makes no sense — the apostrophe has no bearing whatsoever on how the word is understood, read, and propnounced in English. English-language publications always spelled it “Koran” until about a decade and a half ago, for reasons I outlined in my first column in this thread.
The media did the same thing in the 80s, when we bombed Libya, tripping over themselves for weeks, trying to root out the “proper” spelling of Kadaffy’s name.
Unnecessary complexity. That is the key to lib/SWPL spelling guidelines for translitetation.
Jesus is a name. Christ is an honorific – “the anointed”.
My cleverness aside, I think we should call him the pedophile Mohammed seeing as how he deflowered Aisha at the age of nine.
Yeah, what if a high-ranking NAMBLA member praised Mohammed as a wonderful pedophile and a champion for pedophile rights?!
Though I think he was a barbaric pedophile, perhaps the reason he is distinguished as “the prophet Mohammed” is that “Mohammed” is such a common name for Muslim males. My Spanish fluency isn’t what it used to be, but I wonder whether Spanish language news stories are more likely to refer to “the Lord Jesus” or “Jesus Christ,” since “Jesus” is such a common name in that culture. Of course, the issue doesn’t come up as often in contemporary news stories, because Christians don’t riot, burn things, and kill people when somebody disrespects Christianity.
thayer,
That wouldn’t explain the spike in the use of the reverential term. Muslims have long been named Muhammad. Why the sudden spike that Woodlief charts?
I think by referring to Jesus as “Jesus Christ” they are essentially doing the same thing (i.e., acknowledging him as “the Christ”). I think “Christ” is Hebrew for “Messiah”, or something like that. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong. If they simply referred to him as “Jesus” or “Jesus of Nazareth” or something like that, it would be more neutral.
Having said that, he is so often referred to as “Jesus Christ” that the writers and editors who use that term probably just assume it’s his name, so they might not be attempting to use an honorific title.