By Sarah Vick
Drawing by Jerameel Lu
Much of American news coverage has surrounded the horrific attacks in Paris on Friday, Nov. 13. Unfortunately Paris was but one site of the devastating attacks took place at the close of week. All attacks are believed to be the work of the Islamic State.
The Guardian reports at least 120 people killed and 200 injured in Paris, France as a result of several attacks. Most victims were killed during a mass shooting inside a concert venue downtown. Shootings and bombings took place in five other Paris locations. Seven of the eight deceased attackers died after detonating explosive suicide belts.
On Thursday, Nov. 12, 43 people were killed and over 200 were wounded in Beruit, Lebanon during two suicide bombing attacks reported The New York Times. The area hit is home to many Shiite Muslims, who are believed to be some of the intended targets of the attack.
According to the Associated Press, on Friday, Nov. 13, a suicide bomber targeted Shiites in Baghdad, Iraq, killing 26 people and wounding numerous others on Friday. Another suicide bombing attack killed 21 and wounded 46 at a funeral for a member of Shiite militia killed fighting against the Islamic State. A third bomb went off on a roadside, killing five people and wounding 15 others.
There are claims that American media has featured Paris significantly more than other areas affected by terror. In The Huffington Post, journalist and designer Martin Belam argued that the media does cover topics equally but non-European tragedies are less popular with readers.
“To say that the media don’t cover terrorism attacks outside of Europe is a lie. They do. But as anyone working in the news will tell you, if you look at your analytics, people don’t read them very much,” said Belam.
Because The Salemite does not have conclusive data comparing statistics of media coverage and views for different inter-continental tragedies, any commentary is at this point is speculation. This is not brought up to compare tragedies but rather to assert that all people affected by terror are deserving of proportional media attention.
thesalemite.org 