A new project has found that when covering instances of torture, cable news refers to it via euphemisms (such as the Bush administration’s preferred language “enhanced interrogation techniques”) almost 75 percent of the time rather than actually using the word “torture.”

The study, published at CoveringTorture.org, monitored over thirty print, television, and online news sources for two years to develop an infographic of how frequently euphemisms for torture were used in place of the actual word. During the observed period of Oct. 2010 through Oct. 2012, the news wire services AP and Reuters fared the best when describing torture for what it is, using euphemistic terms only 43 and 37 percent of the time respectively.

Among the newspapers indexed in the infographic, the Wall Street Journal is by far the least likely to use the word “torture” in its reporting. The Washington Post fares slightly better, with the New York Times performing best, calling “torture” for what it is two-thirds of the time. Cable news networks scraped the bottom in the study’s findings, with MSNBC proving the best of the bunch by calling torture by name only half of the time. Fox News used the term “torture” in place of other phrases only 21 percent of the time.

All of this matters as polling have shown that public opposition to the use of torture decreases when euphemisms such as “enhanced interrogation techniques” are used in the place of the actual word “torture.” Usage in the media may well have improved in the last few years, though. In a previous study on whether waterboarding was deemed torture by the media — conducted in 2010 by Harvard students — the major newspapers fared far worse, refusing to refer to the act as torture throughout the years of 2002-2006. As late as 2009, the Washington Post found itself in hot water for refusing to refer to waterboarding as torture because the Bush administration, apparently, would dispute that terminology.

Debate over torture and its use in extracting information has resumed following the release of Zero Dark Thirty, a film dramatizing the killing of Osama bin Laden. In the film, scenes are included showing waterboarding of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay facility and are reportedly depicted as being an integral part of locating bin Laden. MSNBC host Joe Scarborough on Monday revived the claim himself, saying “the CIA program, whether you find it repugnant or not, actually was effective with KSM [9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed] and other people getting actionable intelligence.” His statement comes despite experts and former Bush officials saying that waterboarding did no such thing. (HT: Dan Froomkin)

A bizarre chain email sent to district and school board officials in the Dallas area this October titled “IRVING ISD INDOCTRINATING ISLAM” inspired a recent investigation of “Islamic bias” in the district’s curriculum. Despite the outlandish claims, the district requested that an official from the organization that created the curriculum to respond. The results of a 72-page investigation done by the organization were not surprising: there’s a Christian bias in schools, not a Muslim one.

The official told the board that a bias toward Islam didn’t exist, even mentioning that “she hired a ‘very socially and fiscally conservative’ former social studies teacher who ‘watches Glenn Beck on a regular basis’ to seek out any Islamic bias in CSCOPE [the curriculum].” She “asked her to look for anything she would consider the least bit controversial.” The Dallas Morning News has the details of an investigation that mentioned “every religious reference in the CSCOPE curriculum, from kindergarten to high school”:

- Christianity got twice as much attention in the curriculum as any other religion. Islam was a distant second.

- The Red Crescent and Boston Tea Party reference mentioned in the email were nowhere in CSCOPE’s curriculum, although they may have been in the past.

- If there was any Islamic bias in CSCOPE it was “bias against radical Islam.”

This isn’t the first time Texas has debated the perceived presence of too much Islam in its school books. In 2010, the Texas Board of Education banned any books that “paint Islam in too favorable of a light.” The reasoning was head-scratching: “the resolution adopted Friday cites ‘politically-correct whitewashes of Islamic culture and stigmas on Christian civilization’ in current textbooks and warns that ‘more such discriminatory treatment of religion may occur as Middle Easterners buy into the US public school textbook oligopoly.’” A Texas based civil liberties advocate said at the time that “the members who voted for this resolution were solely interested in playing on fear and bigotry in order to pit Christians against Muslims.”

It’s not difficult to find examples of the Tea Party’s Islamophobia problem: there was Tea Party Express Chairman Mark Williams who stated that the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” was meant for “worship of the terrorists’ monkey-god,” the Phoenix Tea Party leader who said that “anyone that is a Muslim is a threat to this country,” and Republican Florida Congressman Allen West, who said that “Islam is a totalitarian theocratic political ideology, it is not a religion.” But now, at least one member of the Tea Party, Muslim-American Will Coley, is fighting the anti-Islam sect of the group in Tennessee with some success.

Coley, a convert to Islam, noticed the shift toward Islamophobia a few years ago: “literally overnight I saw groups devoted to economics and constitutional limits turn into something else. Suddenly there were invites to see anti-Islam speakers. This crazy anti-Islam message was taking over.” Coley co-founded a group called Muslims4Liberty and has confronted anti-Islam activists head on. Illume Magazine documented Coley’s efforts:

“He also began doing outreach to local Tea Party groups. His original intention was to focus on educational basics about Muslim belief and practice, such as the Five Pillars and the Qur’an, as well as Muslim artwork.

The sudden announcement in the press of anti-sharia legislation in the Tennessee House and Senate changed everything.

“[We] changed the format of the Islam Awareness lectures at the library. Since sharia had become the issue, we decided to devote each week to covering a different area or aspect of sharia,” says Coley. “We invited two Tea Party groups. One cursed at me, called me names and said I was Muslim and therefore they had no interest in speaking to me or hearing anything my ‘lying mouth’ had to say. The other invited other Tea Party groups.”

The talks made an impact: during a later meeting of East Tennessee Tea Party groups, 12 out of 14 voted to “abandon attacking Islam as a tactic.”

Just last week, the Council on American-Islamic Relations released a letter urging Republicans to move away from the Islamophobic stance that has taken hold of the party. The group pointed out that “mainstream Republican candidates have questioned our loyalty and even threatened to undermine the Constitution in efforts to exclude us from the political process, all without any pushback from party leaders.” CAIR recently detailed that nearly 86 percent of Muslim-Americans they polled voted for President Obama and only four percent voted for Republican candidate Mitt Romney. This discrepancy occurred despite the fact that nearly forty-two percent of those CAIR polled said they were independent voters.

Other Republicans like Coley have rejected anti-Islam extremism as well. Last week, Tennessee’s Republican Governor Bill Haslam told a group of Republicans that a Muslim-American adviser of his had “been incredibly unfairly maligned,” adding, “We believe in people having the freedom in our country to exercise their religion as long as it doesn’t violate the Constitution.” New Jersey Governor Chris Christie made similar comments about critics of a Muslim-American judge he nominated, saying, “it’s just crazy. And I’m tired of dealing with the crazies.”