From Fox News · Brian Flood · · 2m
Fox News vs. the Times on 9/11 coverage
A media fight over who the Times centered in its 25th anniversary coverage of September 11.
In brief
A media fight over who the Times centered in its 25th anniversary coverage of September 11. The dispute is about editorial framing: whether an anniversary story about Muslim New Yorkers displaces the attack's victims, or simply covers a real aftermath. Originally reported by Fox News.
A framing fight breaks out
Fox News Digital reported that the New York Times was accused of treating Muslims as the real victims of the September 11 attacks in its anniversary coverage.
The story that started it
The Times piece was headlined "After 9/11, Islamophobia Shaped a Generation of Muslim New Yorkers," arguing hate followed the attacks while Muslim American influence grew.
“The attacks unleashed a wave of hate, but the years since have seen Muslim Americans' political and cultural influence grow.”
NewsBusters lands the charge
Tim Graham, executive editor of NewsBusters, said the paper cannot mark the day without turning to prejudice as its theme.
“The Times can't remember 9/11 without bemoaning a 'wave of hate' and 'anti-Muslim prejudice'”
What the reporters wrote
Liam Stack and Maya King described once-friendly neighbors pulling away, and a quarter-century of suspicion and hostility toward American Muslims.
“have faced a quarter-century of suspicion and hostility”
Organizing as the answer
Mosques ran makeshift legal clinics and small businesses became nodes in a citywide civil rights network, building alliances across racial and ethnic lines.
“Muslims of different racial, ethnic and linguistic backgrounds formed alliances the city had not seen before”
The Mamdani through-line
That organizing, the Times said, helped elect Zohran Mamdani as New York's first Muslim mayor, held up as the clearest case of American Muslim success after 9/11.
Timing sharpened the offense
The piece ran hours before the anniversary of an attack that killed 2,977 people at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Surveillance is the sore spot
The Times pointed to covert police surveillance of Muslim New Yorkers. Graham countered that treating all surveillance as bias ignores mosques and leaders who have backed Islamist terrorism.
Polling cuts both ways
A Pew survey found some American adults think Muslims are less patriotic, citing 9/11. By some measures, attitudes toward Islam are worse now than right after the attacks.
“public attitudes toward Islam were more negative now than they were immediately after the attacks”
The Times refuses to budge
A spokesperson called the criticism a bid for attention that misrepresents the paper's work, pointing readers to the full range of its anniversary reporting.
“a disingenuous attempt to seek attention and stoke outrage”
The short version
The dispute is about editorial framing: whether an anniversary story about Muslim New Yorkers displaces the attack's victims, or simply covers a real aftermath.
