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US Kills as
Many Civilians as Nice Attack--but Get No Front-Page
Headlines
By FAIR
July 21,
2016 "Information
Clearing House"
- "FAIR"
- A coalition airstrike reported on Tuesday
that killed at least 85 civilians—one more than died
in the Nice attack in France last week—wasn’t
featured at all on the front pages of two of the top
US national newspapers, the
New York Times and
LA Times, and only merited brief blurbs
on the front pages of the
Wall Street Journal and
Washington Post, with the actual stories
buried on pages A-16 and A-15, respectively.
According
to the London Telegraph (7/19/16),
the airstrike killed “more than 85 civilians” after
the “coalition mistook them for Islamic State
fighters.” Eight families were represented among the
dead, with victims “as young as three.” The
Intercept (7/19/16)
reported the death toll could end up being well over
100.
The
Pentagon has not denied the reports, saying an
investigation is underway, according to Stars and
Stripes (7/19/16),
a media outlet that operates inside the Department
of Defense.
As many on
Twitter pointed out, the number of dead was
roughly equal to that of the recent Nice attack, yet
the airstrike did not garner nearly as much media
coverage, nor did news outlets convey an outpouring
of grief:
By
contrast, the Nice attack garnered multiple
front-page stories in the
New York Times and
LA Times, as well as significantly more
than 20-word blurbs in the
Wall Street Journal and
Washington Post.
For those
who see a “false equivalency,” there are two
mitigating reasons for this glaring discrepancy: 1)
The airstrike deaths were an “accident” and 2)
Syria’s a war zone, where civilian deaths are to be
expected. Neither of these retorts are satisfactory,
and certainly not enough to justify a virtual
front-page blackout.
On the
issue of accidental deaths having less import than
purposeful ones, this doesn’t explain why
unintentional natural disaster deaths
routinely receive splashing front-page coverage.
Intent rarely affects coverage of these events; only
death counts do. And this is granting the deaths
were actually accidental, which we don’t know for
sure at this time, or whether the US military was
using tactics, like so-called “signature
strikes,” that are known to greatly increase the
chances of killing noncombatants.
As for the
“war zone” factor,
according to Airwars, a Western group that
monitors civilian deaths at the hands of the US-led
coalition, the total number of civilians deaths
since the beginning of airstrikes in September 2014
has been 190. To increase this number by almost 50
percent in a matter of days would indeed be a
radical departure from the normal course of
events—rendering it more than newsworthy.
Indeed, all
of the publications in question ran a story on the
“dozens of deaths” at the hands of US-led
airstrikes, so we know they deemed it notable. Just
not notable enough, for whatever reason, to put in a
prominent position for US audiences.
Adam
Johnson is a contributing analyst for
FAIR.org. Follow him on Twitter
at @AdamJohnsonNYC. |
