Surprise, surprise: The Associated Press yesterday picked up a Pulitzer for its year-long, non-stop hit-job on the NYPD’s counterterrorism efforts.
The series was a naked bid to appeal to the judges’ PC sensibilities.
The Pulitzer board at Columbia University cited the AP for “spotlighting” the NYPD’s “clandestine spying program that monitored daily life in Muslim communities, resulting in congressional calls for a federal investigation and a debate over the proper role of domestic intelligence gathering.”
Debate? There’s none on the streets of this city, where a recent Quinnipiac poll shows 58 percent of New Yorkers reject the AP’s smear that the NYPD “has unfairly targeted Muslims,” and where fully 82 percent — including majorities of every demographic group — say the department “has been effective in combating terrorism.”
Why such love for the cops?
Maybe because they’ve foiled some 14 terrorist plots against the city since 9/11 — including one targeting the subways by three homegrown Muslim extremists, one of whom is now on trial in federal court.
Adis Medunjanin and two others “were prepared to kill themselves and everyone around them — men, women and children,” a prosecutor charged yesterday.
Before choosing the trains, the trio, who got al Qaeda training in Pakistan, discussed bombing theaters, Times Square and Grand Central Terminal. Medunjanin reportedly said they sought jihad after spending more time at their mosque and being influenced by Islamist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
All of which puts the NYPD’s monitoring program in a far clearer context than has any of the AP’s one-sided narratives — which never even cited a single thing the cops did that is illegal, or even ill-advised.
No matter: Let the AP toast an ill-gotten prize that actually says more about mainstream journalism than about the NYPD.
New Yorkers, meanwhile, can toast their safety — and thank New York’s Finest.