Photo of the aftermath of the Beirut bombing that accompanied the Detroit News‘ report on Americans killed there.
The debates continue over whether last week’s ISIS terror bombing in Beirut was undercovered by the media or just unappreciated by an uninterested public — even though, as Jim Naureckas pointed out on Tuesday, US news outlets overwhelmingly skewed their coverage toward the next day’s mass killings in Paris, in quantity, placement and level of sympathy for the victims, not just in number of Facebook shares. (As of this morning, the New York Times had run 130 stories mentioning Paris and terror attacks since November 13, versus 20 mentioning Beirut — with much of the Paris coverage being front-page news, while Beirut was mostly relegated to brief mentions deep within the paper—often in articles that were primarily about the Paris violence.)
It’s tempting to argue that it’s natural for the US news media to have more concern for Paris because those attacks hit closer to home; as McLurg’s Law has it, people care more about tragic deaths when their neighbors are the victims. Except for one thing: More Americans were killed in last week’s Beirut bombings than in Paris — yet only a handful of US papers even bothered to mention them.
Leila Taleb and Hussein Mostapha, killed in the Beirut bombing, with their three-year-old son Haider.
Leila Taleb and Hussein Mostapha, of Dearborn, Michigan, were visiting the shopping district of Beirut’s Bourj el-Barajneh suburb when a pair of suicide bombers set off explosive belts; the husband and wife were killed instantly, and their three-year-old son was badly injured. Leila Mazloum, another Dearborn resident who had recently received her US green card, was on a visit to help her family members emigrate when she was also killed in the blasts.
As the Village Voice (11/18/15) noted, the only major US news outlet to report on the three deaths was the Detroit News (11/13/15), which ran the story on page one. (Dearborn is a heavily Lebanese-American suburb of Detroit.) The death of Cal State Long Beach student Nohemi Gonzalez in the Paris terror attacks, by contrast, received widespread attention, including multiple mentions on television news (CBS Evening News, 11/15/15, 11/16/15; NBC Nightly News, 11/14/15, 11/15/15, 11/16/15; CNN, 11/14/15, 11/15/15, 11/16/15, 11/17/15).
None of this, it should go without saying, takes away from the horror of the loss of Gonzalez, or for that matter of the 128 Paris dead who weren’t American. But it’s hard to truly mourn a stranger unless you can hear their story, and put yourself in their shoes — as David A. Graham put it in The Atlantic (11/16/15), “People tend to perk up when they see themselves in the victims.” When the media pick and choose who is considered “ourselves,” little wonder that readers end up caring more about some victims than others.
Neil deMause is a contributing writer for FAIR, and runs the stadium news website Field of Schemes.
The “other” victims
This is why I prefer the company of most dogs to most people.
FAIR continues to feign astonishment that the Western press has given more attention to the terrorism in Paris than in Beirut.
Of course the obvious explanation is that a bombing in Lebanon is a “dog bites man” story. For example, Wikipedia lists 16 separate bombing incidents that took place in Lebanon in 2014.
Moreover, sectarian violence between Islamic extremist groups throughout the Middle East is yesterday’s news, so to speak.
On the other hand, the coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris are unprecedented, and therefore inevitably would receive more attention.
Not that complicated, unless you contort yourself into knots trying to establish Eurocentrism. Once again FAIR proves itself to be entirely useless.
“Sectarian violence between Islamic extremist groups throughout the Middle East.”
Those would be the competing extremist groups ISIS and Beirut suburban shoppers?
But, yes, it’s clearly the case that for the U.S. media, Paris represents a “How can it happen here?” moment (the Charlie Hebdo attacks notwithstanding, not to mention previous attacks on London and Madrid), while Beirut is considered the kind of place where one just expects there to be a bombing (though this was the worst terror attack there in 25 years). If you don’t consider that Eurocentrism, you’re welcome to come up with your own name for it.
Do you remember what happened at Columbine? Do you remember the level of shock? Do you remember the details of the most recent mass shooting in America? To be honest, I really don’t. All American victims. Different level of attention, shock and so on.
This is not to say that Eurocentricism is not a factor. Part of the shock of Paris is the sense that it was an attack on “the West” and therefore of our family of nations. The United States has a unique history with France, which supported it before it was even a nation. (Without Lafayette the U.S. would probably not exist.) So the line between Eurocentricism,a long history as allies, and self-interest is not as clear as many pundits would make it out to be.
Nor is the relative lack of coverage of Beirut either devoid of Eurocentricism nor entirely a matter of Eurocentricism. We are used to hearing about Beruit in a context of violence and less shocked in the way we were less shocked by the latest U.S. mass shooting than by Columbine. So I think the main problem is a sort of black and white view of these stories– that it must be either Eurocentricism or it must not be Eurocentricism.
Beyond that, what strikes me is how many of these stories talk about how “the world” ignored Beruit and then just focus on U.S. or U.S. and European news sources. Isn’t that Eurocentric as well? Did “the world” really ignore them or are we just focused on the news in our own area and take it for the world? I’m actually asking this question, because I am curious how much coverage Beruit got in other parts of the world and how it compares to Paris.
See Neil deMause post two comments above:
“Sectarian violence{?}…Those would be the competing extremist groups ISIS and Beirut suburban shoppers?”
No, as the 11/12/15 New York Times story reads: “[ISIS] portrayed its motives as baldly sectarian, saying it had targeted Shiite Muslims, whom it views as apostates.”
Further, while the Times characterized ISIS’ mention of Hezbollah as “an afterthought,” it also reported that “Hebzollah maintains tight security control in the district that was hit, and the bombing seemed aimed at hurting the group by attacking civilians in an area where it has many supporters.”
If you don’t consider that sectarian violence, you’re welcome to come up with your own name for it. Just don’t expect to be taken seriously.
It’s “between” that I was questioning. ISIS targeted Paris residents for religious reasons as well, but no one would think to call that “sectarian violence between competing religious groups,” for the simple reason that most Paris residents, like most Beirut residents, aren’t committing terror attacks against anyone.
As for how Beirut was covered internationally, that’s an excellent question. Nexis’s non-European/North American coverage isn’t great, but maybe if I beat on some Google News with a hammer I can get some comparable data.
On the other hand, the coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris are unprecedented, and therefore inevitably would receive more attention.
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Uh…. Unprecedented?
the novelty with the paris bombing is that people start to realize that there is no magic wall separating the richer countries from the rest of the world. l