The media are responsible for informing the public, they are storytellers and communicators of information. Without the media, we would be left only with the “he said, she said” word of mouth information.
It’s important to receive information that is not only domestic, but foreign as well. When I realized that many U.S. media organizations are lacking on international coverage, specifically relating to terrorist attacks, it was frustrating to say the least.
Following the recent attacks in Brussels, it came to public attention that there have been other attacks that have not been receiving U.S. media coverage. While there really is no good explanation as to why, the issue needs to be addressed and solved.
Certain attacks, such as the suicide bomber incident that occurred in Turkey several days before Brussels, receive nowhere near the column inches and air time that are needed for adequate coverage.
With a quick Google search of Terrorist Attacks 2016, one can see that five of the stories on the first page of responses are from U.S. based media, three of which are CNN stories. Yet almost every story on that Google page are about either Brussels or the Paris attacks from 2015.
While two of the U.S. sources actually address terrorist attacks as a whole, only Public Radio International mentions the attacks that have gone relatively unnoticed. There are even posts that claim to be a timeline of terrorist attacks, such as the one put out by The International Business Times, but leave off many incidents.
This is not to say that the attacks in Paris and Brussels didn’t deserve coverage and that they were not as serious, saddening and important as others, but other attacks around the same time deserved coverage as well.
Also, the media are not to blame for everything in terms of lacking international information among consumers because anyone can do a few quick Google searches and come up with the information from a source where it is actually happening.
Peter Laufer, the James Wallace Chair at the School of Journalism and Communications, understands that the coverage is out there, but it’s not always right up front.
“If as individual consumers we make the effort, we can find out what’s going on in the world,” Laufer said.
On the other hand, the U.S. media are responsible for delivering information to consumers and while many factors can determine what is being covered, the fact is, that sometimes consumers are not receiving the information they need from other parts of the world.
Laufer went on to say that “We need to have a common curriculum of knowledge that we share with the rest of the world.”
Without international media coverage from many mainstream U.S. media outlets, U.S. consumers cannot share in that common curriculum and therefore we cannot function as we are meant to.
“Without a vibrant community of reporters democracy is jeopardized,” Laufer said.
This should be taken into consideration when any media outlet makes a decision regarding what they won’t cover in terms of international stories, like the attack in Turkey.
While the Istanbul incident serves as a good example of an attack that nearly went unnoticed by the eye of U.S. media, there have been many more attacks that have been placed in similar position and need to be brought back in to light, even if it is within a “better late than never” situation.