Terror Reporting

Twitter went ablaze with support when news spread about the Islamic Extremist attack on the offices of a satire magazine called Charlie Hebdo, in Paris, Fance. Under 20 people died, and instantly worldwide attention was focused on Paris and the hashtags "jesuischarlie" and "jesuisahmed".  However, only 4 days prior to the attack on Charlie Hebdo, hundreds and possibly thousands of Nigerians died in another terrorist attack. How come this attack hasn't received equal attention from the press?

Ethan Zuckerman had some interesting insight on this phenomenon. In the interview he explained that there are versions of 'terror'. One version is easy to talk about, and another is not easy to talk about. This idea, in my opinion, is the main reason these two events did not receive even close to equal coverage in the media. 

If you haven't realized it by now, the media has become extremely ADD in how it goes about covering stories. It seems like there is always another big story that is getting obscene amounts of attention, but after several weeks it putters out because most people have lost interest. Especially with the use of Twitter, people consider whatever is trending to be the most important story. News agencies are more concerned than ever about writing relate-able stories. This practice has handicapped most consumer's ability to acquire and process what is important. 

Because of our tendency towards attention deficiency, media consumers and reporters have a hard time covering and following stories and issues that take decades until a resolution is made, such as the attacks in Baga, Nigeria. When people talk about a solution for the Boko Haram issue, the solution covers 20-30 years. Zuckerman mentioned that the media has a very difficult time covering stories that cover that amount of time. This is called narrative bias. Zuckerman suggests that this narrative bias will continue until we are able to find and present some human stories from the terror going on in Baga, Nigeria. 

Zuckerman talks about how the west is getting an improper picture of what 'terrorism' looks like. Many people think that terrorists focus on the elite of the world, which to people living in the United States and other developed countries is 'scary', and therefore sells more newspapers. The sad reality is that most victims of terrorism are poor Muslims in developing nations. The attack on Charlie Hebdo was an attack on principles that most westerners share, so it is easy to speak out against that attack, when it concerns something like free speech or free press. However, it is hard for media users to relate to the attacks on Nigerian villagers because they have never dealt with that kind of situation.

Source: 

TERROR REPORTING AND TECHNOLOGICAL PARANOIA