The Middle East and Islam Dominate U.S. Public Life

by Daniel Pipes
Sun, 31 Dec 2006

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It's about as official as can be: in the words of an Associated Press end-of-year story, "Events in the Mideast shaped much of how we [Americans] viewed 2006."

As voted by AP members, only one of the top 10 news stories of 2006 (#5, Congressional scandals) had nothing to do with the Middle East. Five of them were entirely Middle Eastern or Muslim in content (#1 Iraq; #6 Saddam Hussein convicted and executed, #7 the still-unnamed Lebanon war during the summer, #9 the London airliner plot, #10 the disaster in Darfur). Four of them were in substantial part Middle Eastern or Muslim (#2 the U.S. elections, #3 nuclear standoffs with North Korea and Iran, #4 illegal immigration, #7 Donald Rumsfeld resigns as secretary of defense).

Comments: (1) This domination of the news is not a sudden thing but has been building over decades; though less dramatic the case, I recall the Middle East having an outsized media presence when I entered the field in 1969 – and that was before several Arab-Israeli wars, the 1973-74 oil crisis the Iranian revolution, the Kuwait war, and other mega-events.

(2) This prominence does not mean that the Middle East and Muslims are more important than other regions and peoples, but that they are more in ferment. Little breaking news came out of the Soviet Union in its time or China today, but endless twists and turns take place in – and are reported prominently from – Gaza or Iraq. (December 31, 2006)

Related Topics: Media, Middle East politics

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Reader comments on this weblog entry

Title	By	Date
Islams' "FINAL SOLUTION" to US [500 words]	Mike DeMontoya	May 7, 2007 13:14
A conspiracy theory [140 words]	Robert H. Yauger	Mar 13, 2007 12:17
A Jewish student was brutally attacked at CUNY, NY. Please see the attached article. [1310 words]	H	Feb 23, 2007 19:36
The Scripture and the Heart [218 words]	Stefan Ullrich	Feb 22, 2007 17:55
Not Islam but Political Islam? [w/response] [44 words]	Hassan Radwan	Feb 22, 2007 08:52
↔ Reply to the response by Daniel Pipes to me [179 words]	Hassa Radwan	Feb 27, 2007 05:13
↔ awful [32 words]	me	Jun 23, 2008 03:04
Hamas is sabotaging Sunnis [363 words]	Abudllah	Jan 30, 2007 10:36
Pushing Back [30 words]	Clifford Ishii	Jan 12, 2007 19:26
islam does not dominate public life in the US [54 words]	jon purizhansky	Jan 11, 2007 23:04
Of course [76 words]	Douglas V. Gibbs	Jan 6, 2007 23:15
The MidEast is not the MidWest [391 words]	Abu Nuwas	Jan 3, 2007 12:43
↔ I find the same thing [98 words]	Eileen	Jan 6, 2007 16:15
The Naming of The War [164 words]	Abu Nudnik	Jan 2, 2007 10:34
think small-what constitutes a crisis [346 words]	j	Jan 2, 2007 08:47
Up shi'ite creek in a sunni canoe [45 words]	joe Kaffir	Jan 2, 2007 02:24
Failing to Rise to the Challenge [853 words]	Ron Thompson	Jan 1, 2007 21:06
Jews in the News [174 words]	Mitzi Alvin	Jan 1, 2007 19:28
Even more of the same for 2007 and beyond! [290 words]	Dave	Dec 31, 2006 13:50
↔ ME and Islam dominate... [83 words]	steven L	Jan 1, 2007 21:05

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