In the Wake of Oklahoma Beheading, The @NYDailyNews Slanders and Smears Pamela Geller and AFDI’s Jihad-Awareness Ads

In yet another textbook case of media malfeasance and fallacious reportage, the NY Daily News attacks us for modifying one of our jihad-awareness ads after a request was made by the Foley family.  It was never our intention to add to their pain, which was the sole reason why we changed the photo in the ad.

All of the other ads went up today and are running on 100 New York buses.

But the NY Daily sub-headline is reporting it this way:

 Foley’s parents joined critics saying the ads were bigoted and slanderous to law-abiding Muslims, prompting firebrand blogger Pamela Geller to pull the campaign and send a letter to the family.

The Foley family did not say our ads were bigoted and scandalous, but this statement from the NY Daily News certainly is. Here is what actually happened and what they actually said.

Mr. Foley was a dedicated journalist and teacher. He was committed to reporting on the suffering of innocents in conflict zones and demonstrating their shared humanity to his readers. Having lived in and reported from communities in which nearly everyone was of Muslim faith, he had great respect for the religion and those who practiced it. The advertisement you are preparing to run seems to convey the message that ordinary practitioners of Islam are a dangerous threat. This message is entirely inconsistent with Mr. Foley’s reporting and his beliefs.

Consider how the media covers our ads, juxtaposed with their coverage of the Oklahoma beheading. The vitriol and venom directed and me, while scrubbing the beheading story of jihad and Islam. Jah’Keem’s Facebook page, his adherence to Islam, the shouting of Islamic verses during the beheading, the mosque that preached hate and jihad, are given very little if any coverage.

Jihadists are beheading journalists and journalists are out for my head.

“Blogger pulls anti-Islam MTA ads depicting James Foley before his beheading after criticism from Foley’s parents,” By Jennifer Fermino , Bill Hutchinson, NY Daily News, , Sunday, September 28, 2014

The ads, which were to run begining Monday on MTA buses and in subway stations, showed American journalist James Foley on his knees just prior to being killed. Foley’s parents joined critics saying the ads were bigoted and slanderous to law-abiding Muslims, prompting firebrand blogger Pamela Geller to pull the campaign and send a letter to the family.

Controversial blogger Pamela Geller pulled an anti-Islam ad showing journalist James Foley on his knees before his beheading.

Controversial firebrand blogger Pamela Geller has pulled an anti-Islam ad featuring American journalist James Foley on his knees just prior to his beheading.

The ads were to run on MTA buses and in subway stations, but Foley’s parents joined elected officials in denouncing the campaign and asked Geller not to go through with it.

The ads were scheduled to begin running on Monday in New York and San Francisco, but Geller buckled to the 11th-hour pressure.

Geller sent a letter to the Foleys’ attorney announcing the ads will no longer run.

“As a mother, and one who still feels the pain of the hideous murders of many in her extended family by the Nazis, and with friends in Israel brutally affected by Islamic terrorism as a constant of daily life, Ms. Geller understands and feels intimately the pain your clients are suffering,” reads the letter by Geller’s lawyer, David Yerushalmi.

David Karp/ASSOCIATED PRESS Blogger Pamela Geller bought the MTA ads as a part of her long-running crusade against radical Islam.

“For this reason, and this reason alone, (Geller has) reached out as early as this morning to the New York and San Francisco transit authorities’ respective advertising agents to pull the displays depicting the captive Mr. Foley prior to his beheading.”

Geller’s group, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, had bankrolled the $100,000 ad blitz, which was billed as an “education campaign” to wake up New Yorkers to the dangers of extremists groups like ISIS and Hamas.

But Foley’s parents and critics said the ads were bigoted and slanderous to law-abiding Muslims.

Public Advocate Letitia James slammed the MTA for green-lighting Geller’s ad in the first place.

Vanessa A. Alvarez/AP Public Advocate Letitia James has begun an investigation of the MTA’s ad policies.

“The MTA’s advertising policies make no sense and are woefully inconsistent,” said James.

The MTA said it allowed the ad because courts have ruled that the transit system is a public forum, and that banning viewpoints from being expressed in that forum violates the constitutional right to free speech.

The public advocate “knows full well that a federal court ruling prevents us from banning the Geller ads,” said MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz.

Yerushalmi said some of the Foley ads might still appear in public, given the last-minute decision by Geller, whose group frequently takes out ads highlighting Islamic terrorism.

The Truth Must be Told

Your contribution supports independent journalism

Please take a moment to consider this. Now, more than ever, people are reading Geller Report for news they won't get anywhere else. But advertising revenues have all but disappeared. Google Adsense is the online advertising monopoly and they have banned us. Social media giants like Facebook and Twitter have blocked and shadow-banned our accounts. But we won't put up a paywall. Because never has the free world needed independent journalism more.

Everyone who reads our reporting knows the Geller Report covers the news the media won't. We cannot do our ground-breaking report without your support. We must continue to report on the global jihad and the left's war on freedom. Our readers’ contributions make that possible.

Geller Report's independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our work is critical in the fight for freedom and because it is your fight, too.

Please contribute here.

or

Make a monthly commitment to support The Geller Report – choose the option that suits you best.

• $25.00 here
• $50.00 here
• $75.00 here
• $100.00 here
• $250.00 here