How Do News Outlets Report on Terrorism?
Are all acts of terror treated the same by the media? The December bombing in Nashville was another reminder that the news tends to treat certain perpetrators differently to others. In the UK, headlines were personable and encouraged justifications. This is vastly different to how Islamic terrorism is reported, a trend which many have been observing for some time.
On December 25th 2020, Anthony Warner detonated a bomb destroying several buildings as well as killing himself. 15 minutes before the bomb went off, Warner broadcasted an announcement from a motorhome warning people about the bomb, causing people in the area to flee. The troubling case was understandably covered by both national and international media. As more and more news reports came in, some people started to notice a key difference in the way the Nashville bombing has been reported compared to other similar cases.
It is important to note that whilst some news outlets have defined the incident as terrorism, the FBI have not officially described it as such. It has been widely reported that Warner believed and was deeply involved with conspiracy theories involving aliens and 5G. However, the lack of labelling the bombing as a terrorist act is concerning some people. Nashville City Council member Zulfat Suara commented on Twitter: “To those bending over backward to not call this an act of terror, if Warner had been a Muslim/immigrant/black, will you say the same thing or will you be one of the millions condemning not just him but his entire community?”
In the UK, the Daily Mail ran the headline: "Paranoid Nashville Christmas bomber claimed he had cancer and began giving away possessions weeks before explosion at AT&T building as lead investigator says 'the intent was more destruction than death.'" The Sun titled their piece: “SUSPECT PRAISED Nashville bomb: Mom of suspect Anthony Quinn Warner calls son a ‘good man’ and says she’s ‘devastated and upset.’” There is something striking about these headlines. They are personable, and give space for praise of the alleged attacker, and seem in some way to justify the attack. In no way are these articles associating the attacker with a wider group of people: the focus is just on Warner.
This style of reporting is vastly different to that which often occurs when an act of Islamic terrorism is committed. The Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) is a project of the Muslim Council of Britain which monitors and responds to UK media coverage of Muslims and Islam. In a report published in 2020, CfMM found that “the general pattern of print newspaper coverage shows major inconsistencies in attacks which are similar and a reluctance to label white perpetrators as terrorists or the act as terror” and that “words identifying Muslims or Islam are more frequently placed alongside terror, terrorism, or terrorist(s) in comparison with the most frequent identifiers of far right or white supremacist terrorism.” The Nashville bombing is just one example among many. When the devastating Christchurch Mosque shooting took place in 2019, the Daily Mirror ran a front page describing the terrorist as an “angelic boy” alongside a sweet baby photo. This is vastly different to when the Daily Mirror covered the Orlanda nightclub shooting, for which they described the terrorist in that case as an “ISIS maniac”. Both of these men committed acts of terrorism, and thus both should be treated the same by the media.
It is no doubt difficult for journalists to cover terrorist attacks. There is often much confusion, and emotions are running high. However, as unbiased observers and reporters, journalists must be cautious to not ‘choose sides’, whether intentionally or unintentionally. This is not only for the sake of fair reporting, but also to avoid a backlash on communities who is some way get blame for terrorist attacks when they are in no way involved.
For a detailed guide for journalists on how to cover terrorism, see this UNESCO resource.
