Dear Editor,
Reading our mainstream media it seems once again some lives do matter more than others.
Reading our mainstream media it seems once again some lives do matter more than others.
Over the last week, there were terrorist attacks in
Brussels, Lahore and Baghdad claimed over a hundred and thirty innocent
people’s lives. But much of the western media only covered the Brussels attack
in real depth and gave little coverage to the other attacks in non-Western
countries.
In Brussels and Bagdad 31 people died and in Lahore 69
people were killed, with hundreds wounded in these terrible attacks. But the mass media coverage of these bombings
did not match to the number of lives lost in each incident. The horror of
terrorism affects many people throughout the world, more so in poorer,
developing countries. But when the media doesn’t properly cover attacks outside
of the Western world, it is very hard for people in the West to be conscious of
this fact.
It leads to assumptions that terrorists are only targeting
Westerners and Christians, when people of all races and religions are being
killed and injured. In fact, extremist groups like ISIS and Pakistani Taliban
are killing more Muslims than people from other religions. Such lack of
coverage also it intimates that the lives of innocent people in Europe are more
worthy than the innocent people who died in Lahore or Baghdad and elsewhere.
Our mainstream media has a responsibility to appropriately report terrorist attacks wherever they occur, without a bias towards the race or religion of the victims, because all these lives are precious. All lives matter wherever they are lost. Sending on my deepest sympathy and solidarity to all those suffering the loss of loved ones and to those people who were injured in these awful attacks.
Our mainstream media has a responsibility to appropriately report terrorist attacks wherever they occur, without a bias towards the race or religion of the victims, because all these lives are precious. All lives matter wherever they are lost. Sending on my deepest sympathy and solidarity to all those suffering the loss of loved ones and to those people who were injured in these awful attacks.
How many appeals in are their in non-Western media outlets calling for charity donations to help obese westerners? It kills more than starvation these days.
ReplyDeleteSteve
ReplyDeleteIt is common complaint that media always favours certain events over others. Media outlets argue that viewer ratings and relevance to its viewers often dictates what they broadcast. For instance, as sad as the death of Ronnie barker might have been it did not warrant the blanket main front news reports over and above more serious matters.
Also any difference between the Christian Church of England and the Church of Ireland have nothing to do with Muslims so disagreements between those who follow Islam have nothing to do with non-Muslims. Muslims seldom come out and condemn the murders of non-Muslims because they think that is wrong in its own right -when they do voice condemnation it comes in the same conditional way you argue above -it is linked or couched in arguments that 'sure Islamist's are also killing more Muslims than non-Muslim'. So I am not sympathetic to these sort of conditional expressions of opposition to Islamic hate and violence.