Today, Are Suicide Bombings News, John Tierney? Posted by Heather Hurlburt

I'm sorry that John Tierney is tired of covering suicide bombers.  God knows I'm tired of reading about them, tired of worrying about whether my little boy understands what's coming out of the radio, tired of the gore splashed across my newspapers and magazines.

I even applaud him for using his column to try to open a discussion about what newspapers choose to cover and why, and how that coverage relates to perceptions about violence and security in America and internationally.

But c'mon, John, suicide bombings are not news?

The day that American troops get blown up, and the readers of the New York Times can say, "that doesn't concern me," we are all in big trouble.

Similarly, it seems purely ideological to assert that, when citizens of a country whose future we have taken responsibility for can't serve in the government or police, walk to school or take in a movie without risking being blown up, it's not news.

Then, try replacing "Iraq" with "Israel."  How many would agree that suicide bombings in Israel are no longer news?  Or, closer to home, what if we replaced "suicide bombings" with "school shootings?"  The arguments are the same, maybe even better in terms of not encouraging copycat behavior.

I started this post yesterday, before the latest rash of bombings across Iraq.  There's a challenge here for coverage that goes beyond charnel-house descriptions to digging into why this is happening and what effect it is having on Iraqis.  But this sure ins't the time to cut coverage to a "box  score."  Today it would read Terrorists 60, peace and freedom 0.

Comments

[praktike]

there were 135 car bombings in April. Not all of them made the Times.

[DonkeyHawk]

Tierney's comparison of media coverage of suicide bombings in Iraq and of crime scenes in New York City is scandalous. The reason Americans should know about, and the press should cover, suicide bombings in Iraq is not because of the graphic and gorey aftermath, but the motivation behind it. It takes a fanatic devotion to a nihilistic cause to kill oneself for the purpose of destroying innocent life. That is always news, and we tire of it at our own peril. Comparing this to a carjacking on 5th Avenue is insulting. Truth is the first casuality of war, and Tierney is at the trigger.

[John Robert BEHRMAN]

My son (2LT) is going into "the box", actually "the triangle" with the Blackhorse Rgt (11 Armored Cavalry)in a few weeks.

But, I am sure the chickenhawks are quite indifferent to such things not just in the press but generally. Again, this is a costless war as far as the political elite of this country, LIND's Anglo-American overclass, is concerned.

::JRBehrman

[Carol]

We flatter ourselves that the insurgents (rebels, whatever) are avidly reading our papaers and seeking to influence US public opinion.

I would think the whole point, to the rebels, isn't the US public, but the Iraqi public, who are not reading the New York Times on a regular basis.

[Achillea]

Today it would read Terrorists 60, peace and freedom 0.

Only if you're totally bollixed on NYT kool-aid. It's not a question as to whether terrorist attacks should be covered, it's whether they should be covered to the virtual exclusion of the (far more numerous) exemplars of peace and freedom.

[Mike]

" It takes a fanatic devotion to a nihilistic cause to kill oneself for the purpose of destroying innocent life."

That, or your family being held hostage and you chained to the steering wheel.

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