The White House released a list of 78 terror attacks it claims the media didn’t cover, but it’s another big lie from the Trump administration.
The list was released after Trump claimed to military leaders that the media wasn’t covering terror attacks adequately:
“You’ve seen what happened in Paris, and Nice. All over Europe, it’s happening. It’s gotten to a point where it’s not even being reported. And in many cases the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that.”
Trump’s suggestion that media members are sympathetic to the cause of terrorists has been pushed by conspiracy theory websites like Infowars. There’s no evidence it’s true. But by accusing the media of clandestinely working on behalf of terrorists, Trump has escalated his ongoing attempt to delegitimize any outlet that covers him critically as “fake news.”
Politico reports on the list released by the White House and their claims are baseless:
According to a White House official, the international list was sent out to prove the point “that these terrorists attacks are so pervasive at this point that they do not spark the wall-to-wall coverage they once did.” …
But some of the attacks mentioned on the White House list drew wall-to-wall coverage, such as the San Bernardino terrorist attack in December 2015 where 14 people were killed and 22 others were injured by U.S. citizen Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik, who was a permanent resident. Others in the United States included the massacre at an LGBTQ Orlando nightclub in June 2016 that claimed 49 lives.
The list of incidents from September 2014 to December 2016 references “targets” and “attackers” for each incident in question, and lists casualties. In several instances, the word “attacker” is misspelled as “attaker” or “attakers.”
Politico also notes that “a number of the incidents on the list are said to have had no casualties” and “some of the events listed may or may not have specific connections to terrorism” and “others don’t meet customary definitions of terrorism.”
The attack includes no attacks in Israel nor the attack at a Charleston church on Black parishioners by white supremacist Dylann Roof.
A perusal of the archives revealed that NBC News covered 57 of the attacks on the list, which resulted in the deaths if 745 people — including the Paris terrorist attacks in November 2015, which killed 130 people, left more than 400 others wounded and resulted in hundreds of stories.
By contrast, the 21 attacks NBC News did not cover were smaller incidents in places like Egypt, Bosnia or Bangladesh, resulting in the deaths of just eight people, total. In a number of these incidents the suspects were described only as “unidentified” or “unidentified ISIL” operatives.
Also on the White House list was another terrorist attack that was covered widely by both the U.S. and foreign media — the December 2015 mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, which killed 14 people.
In NBC News’ archives are at least 162 stories that mentioned the suspects. The Los Angeles Times even won a breaking news Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the slaughter.
The BBC calls BS on the list:
We have reproduced the list that was subsequently produced below, and explained what happened in each case and whether we reported on it.
Just because the BBC covered an attack does not mean that incident was not under-reported, although it is unclear whether Mr Trump was referring to US or global news organisations.
Some terrorist incidents do get more coverage than others, a point hotly debated on social media.
Most of the atrocities listed by the White House were committed by Islamists, and the killing of nine black worshippers by a self-avowed white supremacist in South Carolina is notably absent.
Absent too is the 2016 bombing of a shopping centre in Baghdad that killed some 300 people, and last week’s deadly assault on a mosque in Quebec City.
The Sydney Morning Herald calls BS on the list too.
