Legacy media outlets in the United States raised eyebrows over the weekend with glowing coverage of terror leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was praised as a “father figure” with a “propensity to crack jokes.”
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed the Hezbollah terror organization’s leader died in its strike Friday against the group’s headquarters in Lebanon. The IDF said Nasrallah was responsible for the murder of many Israeli civilians and soldiers, as well as the planning and execution of thousands of terrorist activities around the world.
“He was responsible for hundreds of Americans deaths, yet the media here in America is making him look like he’s a good guy,” Ainsley Earhardt said Monday on “FOX & Friends” as favorable mainstream headlines appeared on screen.
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The Associated Press, The New York Times and The Washington Post were all criticized for coverage of the terror leader’s death. Steve Doocy called it “kind of curious” that the press would describe Nasrallah in such glowing terms.
The New York Times faced significant backlash for suggesting Nasrallah “maintained that there should be one Palestine with equality for Muslims, Jews and Christians” in a piece that didn’t feature any sort of byline.
Popular X personality Comfortably Smug responded, “Insane New York Times piece with no byline. Literally NO MENTION of terrorism and talks him up like a humanitarian.”
Indeed, the word “terror” did not appear in the Times piece.
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A separate Times piece noted that the terrorist had “a propensity to crack jokes” and “never pushed hard-line Islamic rules, like veils for women in the neighborhoods that Hezbollah controls.”
“No more pretenses. The New York Times isn’t even putting names on the bylines of their pro-Hezbollah stories any more. It’s just the paper, anonymously as an institution, selecting and framing its version of the news: that Israel killed a globally beloved saintly father figure,” one reader responded on X.
The Associated Press was also roasted for calling Nasrallah a “potent regional force” and insisting “he was also considered a pragmatist compared with the firebrand militants who dominated Hezbollah after its founding in 1982,” noting he was considered an “extremist in the United States and much of the West.”
“Wearing spectacles and sporting a bushy gray beard like many religious Shiite men, Nasrallah’s image was far from that of a militant who commanded thousands of heavily armed, well-trained and battle-hardened followers,” the AP added about Nasrallah. “He often paused in his speeches to make jokes or break into local dialect.”
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AN IDF veteran responded on X, “He was a terrorist and was evil. You missed that part.”
Another user teased that the AP should send flowers, while another added that the AP is “disgusting.”
The Washington Post wrote that Nasrallah was “seen as a father figure” in a piece that said he was “condemned by his foes as a terrorist.”
“Among his followers, Mr. Nasrallah was seen as a father figure, a moral compass and a political guide. He was lauded as the man who empowered Lebanon’s once downtrodden and impoverished Shiite community and protected it from Israeli incursions by turning Hezbollah into a formidable deterrent force,” Post global affairs correspondent Liz Sly wrote.
The Columbia Journalism Review published a piece headlined, “The life and death of Hassan Nasrallah,” that only mentioned the words “terror” or “terrorist” once, when quoting a State Department official who referred to Hezbollah as “maybe the A-team of terrorists.”
Fox News Digital’s Peter Aitken, Lorraine Taylor and Landon Mion contributed to this report.
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