Sunday, January 18, 2015

Media Coverage of January 7, 2015




Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical magazine came under a terrorist attack On January 7th, 2015 in Paris leaving 12 people dead.

As the nature of the case was savage, and it was unexpected, the terrorist attack found exclusive space in every news outlet around the world. We are still watching, reading or hearing daily aftermath coverage from many news organizations.

World leaders condemned the attack, and they also marched against terrorism in Paris.

The protests against Charlie Hebdo attack reached a point where counter protests started as some found remarks offensive to their religious beliefs. People marched against the terrorist attack in Muslim countries, while some other people marched against the magazine’s coverage.

While some news outlets named the attack as Islamic terrorism and the attackers as Muslim terrorists, some reasonably separated Muslims from terrorism. Some journalists even held the Muslim world accountable for the attacks as the attackers were identified as Muslim French citizens.

On the same day, January 7, 2015, according to various news sources (AP, ABC News, NYT), a bomb attack in Iraq killed 12 people. A car bomb has killed more than 30 people and left more than 50 people wounded in Yemen. At least nine people some of them children were killed in Afghanistan when a bomb blasted. Same day, the US military officials have acknowledged that the air strikes against ISIS might have killed civilians too.

To find the initial information I wrote about Charlie Hebdo attack, I didn’t have to do much search as almost any news outlet I checked had some story on the case.

On the other side, to be able to find the information in the latter part, I had to go through several outlets, and compare data from different aspects. I certainly believe there are more, but it is so hard to find all as they are not covered as exclusively. Few news outlets actually covered the stories of people killed in the other parts of the world.

As well as news media, people strongly reacted Paris attack, while Middle East routine did not receive much coverage. What a shame, right? I said routine. Yes, terrorist attacks and killings in Middle East are routine. As they are not happening anywhere near us, or they are not directly affecting us, we do not even care. The deaths are such a routine that Jerusalem Post posted a story on January 8, 2015 about Syria with a headline “Zero killed in Syria combat for the first time in 3 years.”

One time, our news writing and reporting professor had said “If something is not interesting, it is not news.” We are at such a point that hundreds of people being killed is not newsy anymore. It is only newsy when they are unexpected or near us.

In that case, can we say the news coverage is fair, balanced and ethical?

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