On Mar. 12, 2026, Ayman Ghazali rammed an explosives-laden truck into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan.
What followed two days later was NPR’s absurd, Mar. 14, sympathy piece, when Hadeel Al-Shalchi shockingly reported on the “grief and fear” in Lebanon after a terror attack that could have killed 140 preschoolers in Michigan.
NPR’s public editor, Kelly McBride, heard some of the critique from listeners and readers, and on Apr. 2 published a hollow response. In doing so, she substituted speculation for substantiation, downplayed Ghazali’s attack, and maintained it was fine to humanize Ghazali’s Hezbollah-involved family.
When NPR first reported on the day of the Temple Israel attack, it mentioned the word terror only twice: first, when quoting a Temple Israel Facebook post which said the synagogue “was the victim of a terrorist gunman;” then, when it reported that the Oakland County sheriff “told reporters he could not say whether the attack had any links to terrorism.”
Two days later (Mar. 14), as CAMERA previously noted, there was a story about Ghazali’s hometown on the NPR website, but none on the impact of the attack on the synagogue community, traumatized parents of the toddlers, or even the injured first responders.
Several things have happened since Al-Shalchi’s broadcast and corresponding article, and none have done anything to improve NPR’s coverage.
On Mar. 30, the FBI classified Ghazali’s attack as a “Hezbollah-inspired act of terrorism purposely targeting the Jewish community and the largest Jewish temple in Michigan,” which NPR never reported on its website. As of Apr. 7, 2026, there is still no coverage of this on the website.
On Apr. 2, NPR’s public editor Kelly McBride weighed in on NPR’s coverage of Ghazali and his attack. She did not make things better.
The New York Post covered some of Public Editor Kelly McBride’s comments on NPR coverage of Ayman Ghazali’s terror attack.
The public editor minimized the attack, writing Ghazali “drove his car, loaded with fireworks and containers of gasoline, into Temple Israel . . . Ghazali died at the scene, authorities said, but there were no other fatalities.”
McBride’s sanitized account, and the entire NPR website, omits mention of the AR-style rifle, 10 rifle magazines and approximately 300 rounds of ammunition Ghazali bought from a Dearborn Heights gun store and had with him in the vehicle.
McBride also did not mention, nor can it be found on NPR’s website elsewhere, that more than 50 first responders needed hospital treatment from fending off the attack.
McBride was also defensive, arguing that as details of the attack emerged, “it became clear there was a link to the war” because some of Ghazali’s family members had been killed or wounded in an Israeli airstrike. The problem: McBride’s claim substituted speculation for substantiation. She made a big leap without demonstrating any concrete link between the war and Ghazali’s attack.
McBride did not defend this thought process only as of the date Al-Shalchi reported, because as of Apr. 2, she continued to link Ghazali’s actions to his family’s deaths. According to her, “humanizing” Ghazali’s Lebanese family and “exploring the connection between the terror attack on the Michigan synagogue and the family that was killed on the other side of the world” was the journalistic purpose of the story. But if Al-Shalchi had taken the time to confirm credible, already-reported ties between Ghazali’s brother(s) and Hezbollah, would NPR still have framed a story around “humanizing” the family like this?
The only defense for omitting mentions of terrorism in the reporting is the avoidance of speculation, but NPR’s selective speculation in this case can only be explained by bias. McBride also did not acknowledge the FBI’s subsequent designation of the attack as a Hezbollah-inspired terror attack, lending further credence to this theory.
NPR has shown it can do all of the things it has refused to do in its reporting (or lack thereof) on Ghazali. At least in cases where the suspect was not of Middle Eastern descent, NPR reported on the purchase of weapons and hateful online activity of would-be mass shooters. It even sat down with the school principal of a foiled shooting.
McBride conceded in her newsletter that there were no voices from Temple Israel in NPR’s coverage. Yet, five days later, there still aren’t.
If there were an Olympic category for successfully avoiding coverage of Islamic terrorism, NPR would win gold—and not because of God-given talent, but thanks to years of dedicated practice.
As NPR has maintained for over a decade, it avoids “rushing” to label something terrorism. It “describe[s] what happened and let[s] the facts reveal whether it was terrorism, a hate crime, or murder.” Previously, in 2004, NPR’s public editor wrote about using “militant” versus “terrorist” after one listener complained that in the Middle East, NPR labeled murderers of Jews “activists” or “militants” while murderers of non-Jews “terrorists.”
The editor’s comments in response were jarring.
Pro-Israel critics insist that avoiding the [word “terrorist”] has the effect of being ‘soft on terrorism.’
Some journalists resist using “terrorism” because that word has been used by some pro-Israeli activists to condemn the Palestinian movement overall. There is an unspoken concern that to use the term “terror” or “terrorism” in this way might tend indicate [sic] support for the policies of the Israeli government.
The editor continued,
When it comes to the Middle East, some journalists are on the defensive because the definitions have become so politicized . . . [T]here is a sense inside many American newspapers that the pro-Israeli side has been successful in chilling coverage of the Middle East, specifically by insisting that when journalists choose words, they choose sides. This sense of pressure exists inside NPR as well.
What these prior editors and McBride describe is an editorial culture at NPR that has lost the plot. Are we to understand that some nondescript “pro-Israeli side” bogey man is apparently the reason NPR has felt the need to overcompensate with both its editorial and word choices? Or that NPR refuses to post an article on its website about Ghazali’s terror attack being Hezbollah inspired because if it has to use the word terrorism it might indicate support for Netanyahu?
A Hezbollah-inspired terrorist in Michigan tried to kill over 140 preschoolers in a synagogue. NPR’s public editor minimized the attack and said it was okay to humanize his Hezbollah-affiliated family. Except for acknowledging the lack of voices from Temple Israel in NPR’s coverage, all McBride did was win another gold medal for NPR – in the category of bending over backward to diminish terrorism.