White supremacist killer Pavlo Lapshyn.
US journalists have a hard time knowing what to do with terrorism stories when the culprits are not Muslim, even though, in their own country, the vast majority of terrorism is carried out by non-Muslims (Extra!, 8/13).
Pavlo Lapshyn was sentenced to 40 years in prison in a British courtroom on October 25 (Guardian, 10/25.) Lapshyn was convicted of stabbing to death 82-year-old grandfather Mohammed Saleem on April 29, as he returned from evening prayers at a Birmingham mosque; and planting at least three bombs targeting Muslims, one that authorities say would have been lethal had a scheduled mosque prayer service not been postponed.
“I have a racial hatred,” Lapshyn told investigators. “I would like to increase racial conflict, because they are not white and I am white.”
This story of terrorism hardly registered in US news media. According to the Nexis news database, Mohammed Saleem and Pavlo Lapshyn were mentioned in just 10 US newspaper and news wire stories, most of them brief Associated Press and States News Service wires (e.g., Associated Press, 10/25; States News Service, 19/25). The New York Times was alone among major newspapers, running a detailed report on October 23.
Saleem’s story can be contrasted with that of British Army Sergeant Lee Rigby, murdered by Islamist assailants in a London street a few weeks later. Rigby and his killers, Michael Adebowale and Michael Adebolajo, were mentioned in 570 US newspapers and news wire stories.
There’s more than one reason for that. Rigby’s killers stayed at the murder scene and were videotaped talking about killing the soldier. But it’s hard to deny that one reason Rigby’s story got than 50 times the coverage of Saleem’s is that it fits a false and damaging media narrative about who are the perpetrators and who the victims of such horrific acts.
Decisions on which stories to cover are based on many factors not just race or religion. Journalists compete for time or space based on the impact of the story. Generalizing or simplifying a story to make a point is neither fair nor accurate.
Agree w Steve. Like it or not our corporate controlled, button down NSA approved news and entertainment media teaches much of the public what to think about issues and people. Doing a half-assed job of it just prolongs strife and hatred. We need to make sure they do better.
Steve- hard to deny that one of the reasons is a “fact” about the media that you are desperately trying to prove? No really. This is a story about and obviously mentally ill racist. Tragic, but in no way terrorism, and in no way newsworthy to the American public at a time when hundreds of Americans are murdered daily in our own country. As for the incident you compared it to, it’s not even close. A fatal attack on military personal in front of dozens of people complete with post-murder videos by the killers? The fact that you are even trying to compare the 2 shows that you’ve abandoned your mission of making sure that media is fair and have moved on to just producing propaganda to support your pre-determined belief that it is not. Quit reaching!!!!
Terrorism at any time, by any group, must be interdicted at all levels.But if the goal is to somehow say that worldwide Islamic terrorism is no worse than white power mental midgets /thugs in the US….Or no worse than Rabbi Goldstein and his crowd,or father Murphy’s boys,or those crazy hare krishna’s,Buddhas’s bad asses…… Im gonna call you nuts.This is the height of avoiding the heart of a very dangerous problem for political correctness.When the next plain crashes Im not going to the closest Temple to get information leading to arrests,believe me.You be politically correct- and waste your time.Wake up everybody.Radical islam is the big elephant in this room.
Wow, michael e; terrorism has so many definitions. I think that radical NYPD is more than an elephant in the room…it’s a mastadon traveling out of state to spy on Muslims. Isn’t it amazing that city cops can span the globe? : )
To be exact in the definition of terrorism, we must also include those banksters and gamblers who so efficiently brought down the nation, and yet have yet to suffer any consequences. ( I assume that these money and security terrorists are comprised of many religions. So—what’s the plan—make all religions into terrorists enclaves? : )
How about comparing the way acts of terror against Syria – car bombings, suicide bombings, massacres – are portrayed in the western media, with how the same type of terrorism is covered when it occurs in Israel or the UK? When it’s in Syria the words ‘terrorism’ or ‘terrorist’ are almost never used. If they are used they’re in quotes. If it’s Israel or the UK it’s called terrorism every five seconds.
The general public, not our politicians, not our news media, must make the final determinations on what is and what is not, terrorism.
lets be clear people about what terrorism is.It is not fanny and freddy selling mortgages to people who cant afford it.It is not israel or the US bombing military targets and killing innocent people.Not even if it is a lot of them.It is not the NYPD frisking people in high crime zones.It is one thing……..People who aim to kill as many innocent people as they can.That is the goal.911 being a little different than being frisked before I enter a concert or walk through a high crime area.
michael e clearly doesn’t understand terrorism if he thinks it is about “killing innocent people”. “Innocent” in whose eyes?
I think the word “terrorism” is almost useless unless it is very tightly defined – much like the word “murder”. To my mind, terrorism is the deliberate use or threat of extreme violence against civilians, expressly to create terror, in order to achieve a military or political end. If you don’t agree with that definition, I’d be interested to know what details you disagree with. And by that definition many states and many state proxies have been guilty of terrorism. When the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, it was targeted and timed to kill as many civilians as possible. You can argue that that particular act of terrorism was justified if you want to, but that does not mean that it was not, speaking precisely, an act of terrorism.
Remember that the purpose of corporate media is to sell audiences to advertisers. An audience that has been put into a state of mind that is engaging in thought–say, about the nature of terrorism and who participates in it–will not provide the gullible, accepting consciousness that advertisers desire.
Stories must never become too negative or demand too much critical mental participation of an audience before being presented with the emotional grab of advertising. Suggesting that realty might not be as simple, and as differing from that presented by state propaganda, may distract an audience from the easy, feel good, solutions to problems that the advertisers products suggest.
Somehow, I see some connection between the lack of coverage of this salient racism being the direct consequence of the western one sided propaganda against the Muslims in general.
John Feffer is a co-director of ‘Foreign Policy in Focus’, a US think tank. In his August 6, 2009 article titled Their Martyrs and Our Heroes wrote: “We have our suicide bombers – we call them heroes. We have our culture of indoctrination – we call it basic training. We kill civilians, we call it collatoral damage….We have been indoctrinated to view the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a legitimate military target and 9/11 as a heinous crime against humanity. We have been trained to see acts like the attack in Tripoli as American heroism and attack at USS Cole as rank barbarism (though carried out by Israeli agents). Explosive vest is a sign of exremism; Predator missiles, of advanced sensibility….. Remove the occupying force and the suicide missions would disappear. It is not a stretch, then, to conclude that we, the occupiers (the US, Russia, Israel), through our actions, have played a significant part in formenting the very suicide missions that we now find so alien and comprehensible in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Palestine, Lebanon, and elsewhere…..The fact is: Were we to end our occupation policies, we would go a long way toward eliminating “their” suicide bombers. But when and how will we end our own cult of martyrdom?”
http://rehmat1.com/2009/08/10/terrorism-theirs-and-ours/
Huw I would say your definition is correct.I Do think the Us and every other waring party during WW2 were guilty of the present definition of terrorism.And that is why so much has taken place to never again have a “total war” that attacks civilians as it does combatants.Today I do not believe Obama,Bush,Clinton and the other US presidents are guilty of terrorism.i believe innocents are killed…but not targeted.I believe OBL was targeting non combatants.Civilians if you will. I never thought the attack on the Marine barracks was an act of terrorism.It was an act of war between combatants.911 was the opposite.And yes I wont second guess the bomb being used in Japan.Most estimates say the Us would of lost a million men in the invasion. The Japanese a huge part of their population who would of fought.The horror of one to the other leaves no room for civilized discussion.Like amputating an arm to save the body.We can only hope and pray, that pragmatism in total war -never comes again.Today if terrorist had the bomb…they would use it.Not to save their own lives.In fact they would sacrifice thier lives to kill as many innocents as possible.So no this is not a philosophical discussion about what terrorism is to other people.