The Good and Bad Muslims of ABC News

byHabib Battah
Aug 1, 2012

Following her interview with Bashar El Assad (and controversial favors paid to the aide that set it up), Barbara Walters is back with more Middle East coverage, but this time she comes to us from the clouds. In a major two-hour special called “Heaven” which aired recently on ABC News program 20/20 Walters asks: “Where is it and how do we get there?” It may come as no surprise that in answering these questions about faith and the afterlife Walters manages to honor the American broadcast news tradition of promoting an Orientalist, Islamaphobic narrative that paints Muslims as probable fanatics.

Read my full review of the episode at Al Monitor. ABC News did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Habib Battah

Habib Battah is an investigative journalist and founder of the news site beirutreport.com. Battah has covered Lebanon and the Middle East for over 15 years and teaches journalism and media studies at the American University of Beirut. He is a contributor to Monocle, The Guardian, BBC World, Al Jazeera and others, a former fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University and two-time recipient of the Samir Kassir Press Freedom Award. Battah's investigative work was recently recognized for outstanding local reporting by the Columbia University Oakes Award for Environmental Reporting. Battah earned a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. in Near East Studies and Journalism from New York University.