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The Biases of Media Coverage during Disasters
They have a duty to inform the public of any incident involving public health at large and
small scale deaths, and disastrous events. Their primary role involves providing the public with
updates on all global tragedies around the world. Yet some events receive less attention than other
similar situations or seem to just go unrecognized. The news media favors stories about events and
people closest to western culture and location which heads the public to consider its people and
culture most important.
Over the past two decades, the world has experienced a large number of tragedies. Everywhere it seems hurricane, earthquake, terrorist attack, or disease outbreak unfolds. Recently, this
includes the Ebola outbreak in Liberia, terrorist attacks in Paris and Turkey, the San Bernardino
shootings. These tragedies have took over the world’s headlines. The media can create an extremely powerful image of a tragedy to gain the public’s concern and attention. It makes the public
most concerned about the painful events most related to its own western culture.
Sometimes, however, the imagery they create excludes certain points of view, and sometimes
it is a completely imprecise representation. Mainstream media often narrowly its stories to only a
few groups of people. Too often media focuses on certain kinds of pain. The United States media
shows compassion mostly with people groups most similar to its own western culture.
In a survey regarding attitudes and reactions of the media’s coverage of terrorist attacks, 534
people were asked how they prefer to receive information. 71.5 percent preferred to receive information by watching TV (Keinan 2). In the same study, people were asked what position should
carry more weight in relation to media coverage of a terrorist attack. 58.4 percent answered the
position that what should carry the most weight was the argument stressing the public’s right to
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know (including painful and difficult details) (Keinan 3). Not all disasters seem to capture the
attention of the camera. Terrorist attacks and the “war on terror” seem to be the most popular
events covered by the media. Other stories that are equally as significant don’t get that type of
coverage. For example, 110 people die every day in The USA by car accidents; that accounts for
more deaths than terrorist attacks, but they don’t get as much news coverage.
Large number of countries are abused by terrorist.
Some attacks that received very little news coverage include the November 2005 Al Qaeda
attacks- what Jordanians have called their 9/11- on three hotels in Amman that turned a wedding
reception into a morgue, killing over fifty and wounding almost two hundred and fifty; the series
of explosions in Bali at the beginning of October 2005 that killed twenty people and left perhaps
one hundred injured; the July car bombing of tourist sites in Egypt that killed almost ninety and
wounded more than 100 ; and the Valentine’s Day car bombing that killed former Lebanese Prime
Minister Rafiq Hariri and twenty others in Beirut (Moeller, pg. 174)
It is shocking that these events are not regarded as newsworthy in the Western world. Global
crises are assessed by government officials often in terms of security interests at stake, while policy
analysts typically look at crises in terms of their own singular priorities (Moeller, pg. 174). The
media does not consider the amount of interruption or the amount of lives taken when covering
stories on mainstream media.
Obama talked about the Paris attacks, and he showed appeared very disturbed. One day after
the attacks Obama said we will stand by them “shoulder to shoulder” he also said America would
help them fight terrorism (Garunay,2015). However he did not say anything about Beirut, and
Beirut’s attacks happened one day before the Paris attacks.
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Politically Obama cares about the relationship between France and The USA, and the interest
between both countries. Also he cares for France because it is powerful country, but Lebanon is
not. More than twice as many people died in the Paris as they did in Beirut, and that still not enough
coverage, the CIA did not even mention Beirut in condors during speech but mentioned Paris
attack victims and those lost in plane crash over Russia. We can say the CIA did not mention
Beirut, because Lebanon is not as big and powerful as France. (Beckwith. 2015)
According to the director speech of the CIA, only spoke about France and how they care
about what happened in Paris, and this continues in western news. They focus on the Paris attacks.
Western news did not mention Beirut for some reason, small country and not large number died
as much as Paris. They not mentioning Beirut shows just the western people and culture are important when it comes to news for the masses.
The media talked about the Paris attacks everywhere, and they showed the whole scene.
CNN made a web page for the people who died in the Paris attacks, and the information of all the
people who died and pictures for most of them. For example, people who died in Paris, they give
more information and pictures, such as “Artist Albab Denuit 32 years old, completed his PHD in
fine Arts at the university Bordeaux Montaigne where he also taught in the school’s Department
of Arts (Conlon, gray, Fantz and Stapleton,2015).
However, the CNN revealed the Beirut attack as basic information and just a number for the
people who died. The specific information is “three local members of Hezbollah were among those
killed in the attack” (Botelho,2015). That it shows five words for three people out of 43 people
who died.
Another example of a tragedy that the American media failed to cover was the earthquake in
the Iranian city Bam in December of 2004. The tragedy killed nearly 60,000 people, many of them
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children. The rest still live in the ruins, broken hearted and destitute, trying to raise the will to
rebuild their lives slowly (Moeller, pg. 176). Only Iran seems to care that this disaster ever happened. It seems as if the United States completely turned away from this horrible tragedy.
One of the biggest misinterpretations that the media has created after a tragedy is racism
against the Muslim and Arab communities after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001.
Mainstream media suggests the year 2001 was a life changing moment in Arab-American relationships in which the Americans see Arab Muslims as dogmatic, violent, and lacking in tolerance
while Arab Muslims see the Americans as selfish, immoral, and greedy as well as violent and
fanatical (Altwaiji, pg. 1). On August 11th, 2001, Reporter Alexander Rose critiqued the Arab
Middle East in the following: They say in news Muslims celebrate the 9/11 attacks.
“Despite all the golden promises of their leaders, Arab countries are poor, oppressed, nervous, pitiful places that can only stare enviously at Israel, a country which enjoys a standard of
living approaching that of Canada. Unlike its neighbors, Israel is a thriving noisy democracy with
a high-tech sector greater in absolute terms than any other country apart from the United States.
Fifty years ago, that land was a desert. It has never lost a war.”
Based on Rose’s critique above, the events after September 11th, 2001 were portrayed with
racist views. This narrow perspective, primarily conservative and American in origin, has rendered
an immensely homogenized Islamic “Arab World” that is characterized by its poverty, dictatorial
regimes, draconian human rights record, economic backwardness, and social malaise (Ismael, pg.
3).
They say in news Muslims celebrate the 9/11 attacks. The news talked about 9/11 during that
time, and some of them reported that some Arab celebrated the attacks of 9/11. In US they show
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that just the American culture is important, and the Arabs look bad and blood thirsty. Also they
presented a whole people group as an enemy.
In the past, the United States actually encouraged and supported Islamic political groups,
which were also considered anti-communist. Arab-Americans even state that they express pride in
their heritage by investing every talent they possess to make America great (Kaufer, pg. 55). Now,
Western mainstream news media as well as movies, magazines, and the internet is all a part of
Americans understanding of the Islamic and Arab people. The truth is, many of the Muslim faith
have the same goals as people living in the Western world. They want to live peaceful lives, have
good economies and jobs, and have families of their own.
What Arab and Muslim people really object to be that, thanks to the repressive and corrupt
regimes that Washington has supported, they have been deprived of democratic freedoms, and in
their eyes, the US tramples on the self-determination of peoples, especially when those people are
Palestinian (Ismael, pg. 5). Many in Arab countries actually would like to have the democracy and
freedoms that the Western world has.
In the media, Arab countries are depicted as following Bin Laden and how he is the voice of
Islam. The Arab people don’t see him that way at all; however, they see him as a leader of a
disaffected political organization. The men that were most likely responsible for the attacks were
men from tribal cultures built on blood and revenge. Bin Laden and the men that were involved in
the attacks used violence and hate, which is not in the Muslim doctrine anywhere.
The view of the Muslim faith in media is only portrayed when it affects the Western world
in a negative way. Mostly, these people are put on display after a form of political violence occurs.
It is misleading to identify any Arab state or political movement as being representative of Islam
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and its teachings, as it would be to reduce Christianity to a single Protestant church or Judaism to
the interpretations of any single Rabbi (Ismael, pg. 6).Christian extremists are rarely even put on
display in this manner. There are many hate organizations such as the KKK and pro-life activists
who bomb abortion clinics and even kill medical professionals that don’t receive this type of media
attention. These groups are definitely not connected to the Christian faith in the media.
Much of the media in the United States is government based. Media now depends on the
government and military briefings, inside contacts, and professional press kits in order to construct
the basic information on which their coverage of events is based (Ismael, pg. 7). Since there is a
positive portrayal of the military in the media, people don’t think much of this. One example of
how the government gets its message out through the media is President George Bush’s announcement regarding the attacks of September 11th 2001: “Every nation in every region now has a decision to make…either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” A statement like this makes
people believe they are supporting the right thing, and everyone that does not agree is a terrorist.
Evidently by its absence within the media’s analysis was any formulation explaining the
motivations of the terrorists themselves, or an examination of why anyone in the world would have
such antipathy towards the government of the United States (Ismael, pg. 9). The attacks of American antagonism and brutality towards the Arab and Muslim communities were not displayed in
the media. The United States called it “The War on Terror”.
Another example of how racism is evident toward the Arab and Islamic groups in the media
is by a National Post columnist named Jonathan Kay:
“We should not pretend that an effective fight against terrorism can be waged in a truly color-blind
fashion. The fact is, those who plot the downfall of our civilization are of one religion and, almost
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without exception, one race. Multiculturalism is a relativistic creed that assumes all immigrant
cultures are equally liberal, civilized and enlightened once you scratch the surface.”
Reports such as these come from a place of fear and anger towards the attacks of September
11th, 2001. People should be upset, but they need to know they cannot take it out on one race or
culture as a whole. The whole Muslim and Arab community is not to blame for the violence and
hatred of a few men.
Many hate crimes resulted because of the constant media coverage regarding these groups.
Many innocent Muslims were attacked in their own homes, schools, and mosques. Mosques were
shot at and many were harassed on the streets. Several incidents were reported, in Oakville, Ontario
there were five school children with Arabic-sounding names that were physically assaulted. The
violence even reached the point where it extended to other immigrant groups. Those who had a
little darker skin but were not even Muslim reported to suffer from angry Americans.
After September 11th, media reports continued, but left out the forms of terrorism that
seemed to be in connection with Israel. Israeli fatalities and injured were often named, and the
locations and activities they were carrying out at the time of the attacks lent not only sympathy but
also an intimate awareness, connecting readers with Israelis who were attacked while shopping,
eating pizza, dancing in a nightclub, riding a bus, or attending a family meal (Ismael, pg. 13).
Although the media depicted those attacks in a descriptive and emotional way, the innocent
Palestinian victims of terror were never recognized. After September 11th, and still to this day,
Palestinians live in harsh conditions and even refugee camps. The daily encumbrance and humiliation of military checkpoints, arrest without charge, inability to move freely from one Palestinian
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town or area to another, curfews, and periodic household searches have devastated an already anemic Palestinian economy, and had untold consequences on the social fabric of their entire society
(Ismael, pg. 13).
Israeli victims of terror created empathy in the media while Palestinian victims, who had to
endure worse conditions, remained in the dark. Victims of U.S. bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan
were also left out of the media around the globe. The horrific truth is that the majority of victims
that were not receiving any attention on the media were completely innocent. How is it fair that
some innocent people are mourned but others are ignored just because of their race or because of
how important they seem to a government? All people should be considered equal.
Media focuses on western people and culture, leading the public to take an ethnocentric view
of the world. At the same time, they present Arabs as bad and blood thirsty. Mainstream media
will continue to misrepresent many cultures and events around the globe. The US media focuses
on the powerful countries and their importance to the USA. Focus and care should be for all the
countries.
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Work Cited
Altwaiji, Mubarak. “Neo-Orientalism and the Neo-Imperialism Thesis: Post 9/11 US and Arab
World Relationship.” Pluto Journals 36.4 (2014) 314-319. 14 Feb. 2016.
Beckwith, Ryan Teague. “Read the CIA Director’s THoughts on the Paris Attacks.” Time . 16 Nov
2015.
Conlon, Kevin, Melissa Gray, Ashley Fantz, Anneclaire Stapleton. “Paris Victims from all over
the world and All Walks of Life.” CNN.18 Nov 2015. 12 Apr 2016.
Garunay, Melanie. “President Obama Offers a Statement on the Attacks in Paris.”
Whitehouse.gov. 13 Nov. 2015. 10 Apr. 2016.
Ismael, T.Y. "Racism and the North American Media Following 11 September." Arab Studies
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Quarterly, n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2016.
Kaufer, David. “The War on Terror through Arab-American Eyes: The Arab-American Press as a
Rhetorical Counter public.” Rhetoric Review 28.1, Carnegie Mellon
University, 2009. Web. 14. Feb. 2016.
Keinan, Gloria. “Attitudes and reactions to media coverage of terrorist attacks.” Journal of
Community Psychology 31.2, 2003. Web. 14 Feb. 2016.
Kim, Yung Soo. “News Images of Terrorist Attacks: Framing September 11th and its Aftermath
in
the Pictures of the Year International Competition.” Atlantic Journal of Communication
20.3 (2012) 158-184. EBSCO. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.
Meyer, Josh. “Media Responsibility During a Terror Attack.” Case Western Reserve Journal of
International Law 38.3 (2007) 581-587. Web. 14 Feb. 2016.
Moeller, Susan. "Regarding the Pain of Others Media, Bias, and the Coverage of International
Disasters." Journal of International Affairs 59.2 (2006) 173-87. The Trustees of Columbia
University. Web. 14 Feb. 2016.
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The Biases of Media Coverage during Disasters
It is a usual thing that the United States media leaves out details and only tells the public
what it wants them to know during tragedies. The media plays a huge role in the event of a natural
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or man-made tragedies. They have a duty to inform the public of any incident involving public
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health at large and small scale deaths, and disastrous events. Their primary role involves providing
the public with updates on all global tragedies around the world. Yet some events receive less
attention than other similar situations or seem to just go unrecognized. The news media favors
stories about events and people closest to western culture and location which heads the public to
consider its people and culture most important.
Thesis
Over the past two decades, the world has experienced a large number of tragedies. Every-
where it seems hurricane, earthquake, terrorist attack, or disease outbreak unfolds. Recently, this
includes the Ebola outbreak in Liberia, terrorist attacks in Paris and Turkey, the San Bernardino
shootings. These tragedies have taken over the world's headlines. The media can create an ex-
tremely powerful image of a tragedy to gain the public's concern and attention. It makes the public
most concerned about the painful events most related to its own western culture.
Sometimes, however, the imagery they create excludes certain points of view, and sometimes
it is a completely imprecise representation. Mainstream media often narrowly its stories to only a
Al Background
Society
of terror created empathy in the media while Palestinian victims, who had to
ions, remained in the dark. Victims of U.S. bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan
the media around the globe. The horrific truth is that the majority of victims
ing any attention on the media were completely innocent. How is it fair that
e are mourned but others are ignored just because of their race or because of
seem to a government? All people should be considered equal.
on western people and culture, leading the public to take an ethnocentric view
e same time, they present Arabs as bad and blood thirsty. Mainstream media
srepresent many cultures and events around the globe. The US media focuses
untries and their importance to the USA. Focus and care should be for all the
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