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The aftermath of Thursday's shooting spree at Fort Hood in central Texas continued to lead all three newscasts. It was still Story of the Day but did not attract the same saturation coverage (18 min total v 44 Friday, 41 Thursday) as last week. Attention turned to Major Nidal Hasan, the army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 of his comrades on the base. Hasan is now conscious in hospital and has retained a defense lawyer. The three newscasts led with news that he had come under intelligence scrutiny when spies intercepted his e-mails, even before he was assigned to Fort Hood.

The three reports presented the same basic information: spies monitoring radical Islamist e-mail traffic had picked up on Major Hasan's correspondence with Anwar al-Awlaki, his onetime imam at a mosque in Virginia, now in exile in Yemen. Upon hearing that it was Hasan who had allegedly committed Thursday's rampage, al-Awlaki's Website praised him as a hero: "How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done?"

Those facts aside, the various correspondents drew divergent conclusions…

Listen to Pete Williams' measured take at NBC. He characterized Hasan's inquiry of al-Awlaki as "general, about the role of Moslem soldiers and was considered consistent with Hasan's job to counsel service members." Unidentified "law enforcement officials" told Williams that the e-mail "was not anything specific or threatening." As for the imam, Williams described him as "a radical cleric well-known to United States intelligence…an outspoken advocate of violent jihad."

Contrast that with ABC's Brian Ross. His unnamed "official" sources told him that Hasan's e-mail was "reaching out to al-Qaeda." Ross characterized al-Awlaki as "one of al-Qaeda's top recruiters…an American who operates an English language Website out of Yemen urging all Moslems to wage jihad against the United States." Hasan's communications were with "suspected terrorists"--plural--Ross asserted.

On CBS, Bob Orr lined up with Williams rather than with Ross, He reported that the content of the e-mails "appeared to be benign…asking for help on a research paper studying the effects of war on Moslem-American soldiers." The imam responded with "spiritual guidance; officials say there was no talk of terrorism." As for al-Awlaki, Orr did not report that he is an al-Qaeda recruiter, merely that he is "an influential voice, spewing anti-American rhetoric from his exile in Yemen…and he is an ongoing inspiration for radicals." Orr did not elaborate on how al-Awlaki "spews."

There is some sort of link between imam al-Awlaki and the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. It is not clear what: CBS' Orr called it "known connections" with three of the suicidal hijackers; NBC's Williams reported that two of the 19 "turned up at a San Diego mosque where he was then an imam;" ABC's Ross said that two of the 19 prayed at the mosque in Virginia where Major Hasan had also worshipped.

Andrew Tyndall 11/12/09 5:12:58 pm

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