There was an explosion in Turkey today. When the smoke had cleared, 27 innocent victims were killed and CNN reported, “Dozens dead after terror attack in Turkish border city.”
They did – look:
And the first sentence was: “An apparent suicide bombing ripped through a rally Monday in the Turkish border town of Suruc.”
It got me to thinking. BBC referred to it as a bombing, not a terror attack. But CNN used the T word…and I remembered in anger other bombings…
In August, 2001…a bomb “went off.” Nowhere does CNN use the word terror. Summer, 2001…bombs were exploding all the time in Israel – terror was rampant…except CNN couldn’t use the word.
The next day, Israel struck military targets in Gaza. The minute the attack happened, we all knew it was a suicide bomber; we all knew it was a terror attack…and still, a day later when it was confirmed, still CNN did not call it terror, not then, not now.
And note the difference in how things are phrased – for the Turks, this violent, terror attack involved a bomb “ripping through” where in Israel…in a pizzeria filled with children, the ….no, not a bomb….but a “large explosive device” simply “went off.”
And I love the sentence at the end because, yeah, 15 people were murdered – orphans created in a matter of seconds…children free for the summer…but hey, it’s really important that CNN tells you where the restaurant was located.
When hypocrisy rules a media outlet, its mandate to call what they do “journalism” expires.
Yes, absolutely – today there was a horrible terror attack in Turkey. I hope tomorrow, CNN will issue an apology to the families of the Sbarro victims for failing to report accurately on August 9, 2001 (and likely every day since).