Rachel Yeates, managing editor, shares her views on reactions to international terrorist attackts

Rachel Yeates, Campus Carrier managing editor

The world is in mourning. Last week hundreds were killed in terrorist attacks in Beirut, Baghdad and Paris, but the world is lit with the colors of the French flag. Media groups have long prioritized Western life, and media coverage of the recent tragedies is nothing new. 

On Nov. 15, Al Jazeera criticized the New York Times for their bias in coverage of Beirut and of Paris. Take these two headlines for example: “Paris Attacks Kill More Than 100, Border Controls Tightened” and “Deadly Blasts Hit Hezbollah stronghold in Southern Beirut.” Articles about Paris were charged with emotion while articles about Beirut were charged with political and geographical jargon.

Some would argue that media should cater to the regionalized needs of its audience, but those who use this argument in light of current events show a narrow world view. The world is not divided into homogeneous countries. Belief in the value of human life should not be filtered by nationality or country of origin.

Al Jazeera goes on to mention Australia’s illumination of the Sydney Opera House in show of solidarity with Paris. Australian media was quick to note the Australian Lebanese community outnumbers the French community three to one.

Solutions to Western bias should not involve the pitting of tragedy against tragedy, but learning to recognize internal biases that color our focus. Loss on this scale may not be as common in Western countries, but which is worse? The novelty or the norm?

Assuming that tragedy is inevitable in the Middle East leads to, at least, a jaded view of conflict in that area of the world and, at worst, the devaluing of the lives of those who claim Middle Eastern origin.

Facebook Safety Check, a feature that allows those in a disaster area to quickly alert their friends and relatives to their condition, was opened to those in Paris on Nov. 13. Mark Zuckerberg responded to criticism on his official Facebook page.

“Many people have rightfully asked why we turned on Safety Check for Paris but not for bombings in Beirut and other places,” Zuckerberg said. “Until yesterday, our policy was only to activate Safety Check for natural disasters. We just changed this and now plan to activate Safety Check for more human disasters going forward as well.”

He made this comment in a thread underneath his temporary profile picture with a filter of the French flag. No Lebanese flag filter has been released.

Google Trends data shows the distance in Internet interest in the attacks in Paris compared to those in Beirut.

Similar disparities were evident in the peaks in interest in 2014 coverage of Ebola outbreaks. As soon as Western civilians were affected, the outbreak was promoted to crisis status. But it shouldn’t be a numbers game. One American life is not greater than over 10,000 African lives.

André Carrilho, an artist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New Yorker, illustrated this bias in one stark image. His cartoon depicts rows of hospital beds, all except one filled with dark-skinned figures contorted in pain. A reporter and cameraman are crouched not beside any of those beds, but beside the single bedridden white figure.

“People in the African continent are more regarded as an abstract statistic than a patient in the U.S. or Europe,” Carrilho said in an interview with Mic. “How many individual stories do we know about any African patients? None. They are treated as an indistinguishable crowd.”

Stories of individuals in Beirut are also few and far between. Few articles feature names or interviews of Lebanese survivors.

ISIS and other terrorist organizations are causing more damage in the Middle East than in France, but it takes French attacks to call the Western world to attention.

Just because the media doesn’t publicize terrorism in the Middle East doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. Seek out news outlets with a truly international focus. For all that Western media tries to report on world events, we do so with an inherent bias.

I stand with Paris, and with Beirut and with Baghdad. I stand with the countless individuals who will remain unnamed and unheard.