Why Are Persons Unknown More Likely to Be Called ‘Terrorist’ Than a Known White Supremacist?

[Judi Lynn]

Why Are Persons Unknown More Likely to Be Called ‘Terrorist’ Than a Known White Supremacist?

By Jim Naureckas
Jun 19 2015

In the wake of mass violence, a nation struggling to understand turns to its news outlets to see how they frame events. The language journalists use in the immediate aftermath of a bloodbath helps form public attitudes and has a major impact on official reactions.

When two bombs went off at the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013, killing three and injuring hundreds, it was inevitably a huge story: A search of the Nexis news database for US newspapers on the next day turns up 2,593 stories mentioning the marathon, virtually all of them about the bombing. Of these, 887, or 34 percent, used the word “terrorism” or a variant (“terrorist,” “terroristic” etc.)–even though the bombers, let alone the bombers’ motivations, would not be known until days later.

When nine people were killed at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on April 17, 2015, there were 367 stories in the next day’s papers that mentioned “Charleston” and “church,” according to Nexis–a big story, though not given the blockbuster treatment of the Boston Marathon bombing. Of these 367 stories, 24 mentioned “terrorism” or “terrorist”–just 7 percent, even though a suspect, Dylann Roof, was named on the first day, with evidence presented that he was motivated by a white supremacist ideology and a desire “to start a civil war” (Columbia, S.C. State, 6/18/15).

Some suggest that the word “terrorism” has been so politically manipulated and selectively applied that we would do well to drop the whole concept. But politically motivated violence that targets civilians–which is the core of the various definitions of “terrorism”–is an actual phenomenon that is hard to talk about without a label.

More:
http://fair.org/home/why-are-persons-unknown-more-likely-to-be-called-terrorist-than-a-known-white-supremacist/

[GoneFishin]

1. Because "terrorist" is the new "commie". It is most valualuble to those in power as a tool to

emotionally manipulate people to get what they want. If the term becomes accepted to include whites and Christians then it's power to scare and manipulate people is vastly diluted.