Terry Mattingly points out that the press provides a lot of detail about Tony Blair, in the audience being a recent convert to Catholicism, and the fact that Westminster Hall saw the trial of St. Thomas More, but when a bunch of London "street-cleaners" (Algerian Muslims) were arrested on suspicion plotting to kill the Pope, the press's interest in religion dropped sharply.
As Matting puts it:
At the same time, the response of some of the world’s major news players has been interesting. The key point, again, is this: How high in the story do you answer the question that everyone really wants answered?The New York Times headline refers to them not as Muslims, or as Algerians, but as "6."British Police Hold 6 on Terror Charges as Pope Visits, By John F. Burns And Alan Cowell, NYT, September 17, 2010]
At that, the Times managed to mention the world "Algerian" by the second paragraph. The Associated Press buried it in paragraph 6.
The AP also threw in this undetailed detail.
"Benedict's predecessor Pope John Paul II was wounded in an assassination attempt in 1981 in St. Peter's Square. Police in the Philippines also disrupted an alleged plot to assassinate John Paul in Manila in 1995."Both of those attempts involved Muslims, too.
Update: 5 ALGERIANS ARRESTED IN TERROR PLOT AGAINST POPE!! (Video) is the headline Gateway Pundit put on it. In a more sensible world, you'd see that in the newspaper.
