A Salon writer is denying charges he deleted an article this week after he learned the accused culprit in an attack on a Texas mosque is a Muslim.
The author of the article, Ben Norton, told the Washington Examiner’s media desk that he didn’t remove the article, but said it was merely “reverted to a draft” so updates could be added.
“When I first wrote the piece, it was based on Reuters and NBC reports that did not identify the suspected arsonist as a man who attended the mosque,” he said.
“If I had known that at the time, I would have included it in the article. When I learned the information, I updated the article – just as Reuters and NBC both did in their reports,” he added. “In its original version, Reuters quoted local authorities saying they haven’t ruled out hate crime motivation, so I was simply reporting what Reuters had reported.”
Norton also explained that when the article was first updated with an editor’s note, it also had a new Uniform Resource Locator (URL), “which made all the old links dead.”
“Later, I then had to go in and change the URL back to the original, to reactivate the old links,” he added.
The Daily Caller reported earlier Thursday morning that Salon deleted the article after it learned that a devout Muslim, Gary Moore, 37, has been charged with setting fire to the Islamic Center of Houston on Christmas Day.
Though the article was indeed temporarily unavailable Wednesday afternoon, Norton maintained that it wasn’t removed for the reasons the Caller claimed.
“I was working on another piece at the time (I often write three to four per day) and, as soon as I finished it (a piece criticizing Obama’s mass deportation policies, I might add), I added an update to the Houston mosque piece and it was republished at 5pm, with an editor’s note,” he told the Caller, adding that the article was merely “temporarily reverted to a draft, in order to be edited.”
“I’m sorry this doesn’t fit your narrative, but your entire post is not just misleading — it is plain wrong,” he added.
The Daily Caller added Norton’s comments to its original report in an update.
The conservative website then added a second, cheeky update, reading, “The article has been posted once again, and modified to note Moore’s background.”
The Salon report, titled “Amid escalating anti-Muslim violence, suspect arrested for allegedly setting Houston mosque on fire on Christmas,” now carries an editor’s note reading, “This article was updated with more information about the identity of the suspected arsonist, after it was released.”
Prior to being updated, the original version of the Salon article cited officials who said that the fire was likely set by an anti-Muslim bigot.
The original version read, “Muslim community members say the attack was a hate crime. Texas mosques have previously been targeted by heavily armed anti-Muslim protesters. Many Texas Muslims have said they feel unsafe in the atmosphere of aggressive hate and bigotry.”
This passage has since been updated so that it now reads, “Although the Houston mosque appears to have been set by a Muslim, other Texas mosques have previously been targeted by heavily armed anti-Muslim protesters. Many Texas Muslims have said they feel unsafe in the atmosphere of aggressive hate and bigotry.”
Mustafaa Carroll, executive director of the Houston chapter of the leading Muslim civil rights organization the Council on American-Islamic Relations, was also quoted in the story as saying, “Because of the recent spike in hate incidents targeting mosques nationwide, we urge law enforcement authorities to investigate a possible bias motive for this fire.”
Caroll’s quote was later removed entirely.
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This post has been updated.
