NPR still blacklisting terrorism expert

0 Comments | Insight on the News, March 11, 2002 | by John Elvin

Steven Emerson, a specialist in monitoring and assessing militant Islam, has warned of the peril to civilians in the United States for years. More than three months before the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, he wrote of al-Qaeda's intention to hit U.S. targets and said "we must fight them as we would in a war." Emerson is author of a new book, American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us, which columnist Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe called "the indispensable guide to American Muslim extremists and their ties to international terrorism."

Jacoby goes back a ways as an admirer of Emerson's work as director of the Investigative Project, a Washington-based intelligence- and data-gathering center specializing in information on extremist groups. The Globe columnist was the first to raise a stink when, due to protests from Arab-interest groups, Emerson was banned from National Public Radio (NPR). In response to a protest, NPR producer Ellen Silva wrote to Ali Abunimah of the American Arab Action Network: "You have my promise that he won't be used again."

Later, NPR denied that Emerson had been blacklisted, but the fact remains that in the ensuing three-and-one-half years, NPR has not invited him back.

For his part, Emerson says "NPR has consistently suppressed news stories about militant Islamic groups in the United States operating under false cover." As far back as 1996 he was making his point: "A political correctness enforced by American Muslim groups has limited the public's knowledge about the spread of radical Islam in the United States." In response, the Council on American-Islamic Relations calls Emerson an "attack dog of the extremist wing of America's pro-Israel lobby" and an "Islamophobe."

JOHN ELVIN IS THE NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT FOR Insight.