Excerpt:
If there is one major news outlet that would be expected to leap to the defense of free speech when that vital linchpin of liberty is under attack, one would expect that Fox News would be the one organization to do so. After all, it wasn't so long ago that the Obama administration tried to cut Fox out of access to the White House. To their credit, Fox's competitors leapt to defend – not Fox, whom the rest of the mainstream networks despise – but free speech. That episode makes the way that all the networks, and Fox in particular, are ignoring the Geert Wilders trial so troubling and, in the case of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., rather mystifying, at least until one scratches the surface a bit.
Nobody expects CNN, ABC, NBC, etc. to cover the Wilders trial because those networks have established beyond any reasonable doubt that they are not going to cover issues related to Islam if the story in question doesn't fit neatly within their "Islam isn't the problem, it's just a few explosive bad apples" narrative. Journalists who bend over backward to disconnect Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan from his jihadist inspirations aren't likely to care about a political leader living across the pond who is obviously nothing more than a fringe, right-wing Islamophobe. But Fox? We've come to expect more from Fox. Perhaps it's time to start expecting less, at least when issues involving Islam are involved.