Wow. More dreck from the Guardian. This time it’s not so much the “we must defend free speech but not really” brand of dreck as the making up their own facts brand. Let’s play Spot the Mistakes.
First two sentences of the piece:
The attacks were in different continents and on people of different faiths and of none, but in the North Carolina university town of Chapel Hill and the Danish capital, Copenhagen, it was freedom itself that was the intended target. On Tuesday, three young Muslim students were gunned down in their Chapel Hill flat, apparently by a neighbour, Craig Hicks, who claimed their faith was an affront to his atheistic principles.
Is that a mistake or deliberately deceptive wording? I don’t know. Anyway it makes it look as if Hicks explained his murder of the three student by saying “their faith was an affront to my atheistic principles.” I haven’t seen any reputable news sources that claim he said that, in fact I haven’t seen any that claim to know anything about what he’s said since turning himself in.
The Guardian seems to think it knows more than any journalistic outlets in the US know. It seems to think it knows that Craig Hicks killed his three neighbors because their religion was an affront to his atheistic principles. I don’t think the Guardian knows any such thing.
Then in the last paragraph:
The killing of the three Muslim students by a gunman whose Facebook page contained violent threats against all organised religion, including Islam, was initially described by local police as a dispute over a parking place.
Violent threats against all organised religion? I don’t think so. I looked at his Facebook page too, and it did make me very uneasy, it was full of very typical gnu atheist mockery and similar rhetoric, but violent threats? I don’t think so.
Nice job, Guardian.