Brendan Loy is unhappy about the Reuters coverage of the terror arrests in Toronto.

...for some reason, Reuters didn’t see fit to mention...whether the arrested terrorists are Muslims, or Arabs, or Islamists, or Al Qaeda members/sympathizers, or… anything. From the Reuters article, you wouldn’t know whether these guys are Osama bin Laden’s band of brothers, or a band of angry rednecks from Saskatchewan. Well, actually, maybe we do sorta know, because if they were angry rednecks from Saskatchewan, I’m sure Reuters would have told us that. But the fact that they’re members of the global Islamist terrorist movement? No, that’s not newsworthy.

Actually, to be fair, at this point, perhaps it's not. I think that most people (even al Reuters) have come to reasonably expect that when terror suspects are rounded up, they'll have Islamic connections. Perhaps we should be grateful that it would only be newsworthy if it were a gang of Moosejaw lumberjacks. That, after all, would be a man bites dog story.

I would be deeply suspicious of MooseJaw Lumberjacks. There are few trees there; it's in the middle of a really enormous prairie.

News takes a decidedly different slant when you go _in_ knowing that reporters follow the 'Man bites dog' theory of journalism.

Exactly, Jane--it would be a huge story.

I read somewhere that the Moosejaw lumberjacks actually were very, very good at what they did.

Want proof? Just look at all that prairie.

Unfortunately, "dog bites man" is probably not the reason for the silence. Rather, they do not want the public to become "intolerant" of those who are trying to exterminate them.

I think the police were making a point of not mentioning political or religous motivations that would make the terrorists look like heros or martyrs to some. Treat them as criminals - nothing more - and less kids will want to follow in their footsteps.

Who really cares what ethnicity/background they are? Terrorists are terrorists, no matter what the race.

There have been two major attacks on the U.S. in the last fifteen years. One was 9/11, which was committed by Muslim extremists. The other was Oklahoma City, which was committed by a white American.

Moosejaw lumberjacks are okay; they sleep all night and they work all day.

The police were really the ones bending over backwards to make it clear that the investigation had nothing to do with race, religion, or ethnicity. However, I would suspect the police would say that. They are trying to build a strong case, and that case would be weakened if the police said something like, "we arrested them because they had long beards and carried a Quran". Further, the police were trying to emphasize the value of their intelligence that there is plenty of evidence that these men were planning a terrorist event. Those arrested were not simply supporters of Islam.

I think Roger Strong calls it correctly. In addition, I agree completely:
Treat them as criminals - nothing more - and less kids will want to follow in their footsteps.