ABSTRACT
For the public, the interview conformed to popular assumptions that Fox News’ national news programming promotes a conservative, Christian-right and anti-Muslim agenda. For Aslan, the interview surely helped him sell thousands of books. It’s rare to find as blatant of an example of a mainstream journalist exhibiting clear anti-Muslim sentiment on the air. Yet misrepresentations, omissions and stereotypes about religion are common in journalism and strategic communication. At a time when the publication of offensive religious cartoons in the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo can lead to a mass slaughter of journalists, journalists and strategic communicators need to do a better job of understanding the fault line of religion and when it risks becoming dangerously offensive.
