[More in the cross-post on the MRC's NewsBusters blog.]
On the 5 May 2015 edition of CNN's At This Hour, John Berman wondered if American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), which organized the Muhammad cartoon conference that was attacked by two Islamists on Sunday, was only provoking more terrorist violence by planning to hold similar events in the future. Berman asked AFDI vice president Robert Spencer, "By holding more events, then, I suppose you could continue to say, are you looking for more violence to keep on making this point?"
Co-anchor Kate Bolduan also spotlighted how "the question has been posed...if the intent was to serve as bait, it worked. Is that what you guys were intending?" However, to her credit, Bolduan later underlined that she didn't want to "debate...if you have a right to be holding this event. You have the right to be holding this event. We're not going to debate here...if violence is okay in light of this event. Absolutely not! I don't even want to debate...the line between free speech and provocation."