Terrorism in Pakistan

Tombo2001

There were a series of terrorist incidents in Pakistan last week which killed I believe around 115 to 120 people. This was given very little coverage in the Irish print media. Not one of the three national broadsheets ran it as a front page article, indeed not of them even ran it as the lead item in their international news sections, with the Oscar nominations and the terrorist killing of 3 Kurdish people in France being ranked ahead of it as a story.

For me, my jaw dropped when I heard the story because of the scale of it but also because I have an association with the city where most of the killings took place - Quetta. I have spent a little bit of time there (about a week) and also some of my relations were born there during the days of the British raj. So I know what the place is like.

Just wanted to get people's views on it.

I dont mean to get on my high horse about it and claim moral authority or whatever.

Obviously the newspapers have a reason for doing what they do.

But I just wanted to sound people out as to whether anyone here considers 3 people being killed in France being more newsworthy than the above story in Pakistan, and if so, why.

Can the press justifiably turn around and say "we are responding to demand, our readers arent that interested in what happens in Pakistan?".....

On a seperate story, the wiki page below makes for grim reading;.......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorist_incidents_in_Pakistan_in_2012

Victor

I get most of my news from the Irish Times and RTÉ. Over the last year or two, both seem to have cut the amount of foreign news they have been including on their websites.

Societally, there is a problem that Irish people don't see Pakistan as 'important' - their preoccupation is with what is immediately around them - while for some that means the countries with an Irish diaspora, for others it means Fair City. However, I don't think this is an exclusively Irish problem.

Tombo2001

Thats interesting you mention that about the Irish times.

Cause I noticed that this paper led its International news on the day in question (Jan 10th) with stories in locations where it had staff reporters......even though they were to my mind, not nearly as important as stories in the scheme of things.

Stepping back from that though, I dont know in this day and age why an Irish newspaper needs a correspondant on the ground at all. Everythings available on-line. You dont need a guy in Paris to be write an article about the French election. And then when the guy is in Paris, you get all the "while I was in my local cafe this morning" personal anecdotes that is irrelevant to the story but justifies their being there. The only exception I would make to this is Paddy Agnew, who has been in Italy so long that he has a very strong innate understanding of the culture and also really excellent contacts.

More importantly, I dont see why an Irish newspaper reporter cant write an article on Pakistan from his or her desk in Dublin......cant be that hard to google a few sites and see what is going on.

On your other point, you are clearly right that Irish people dont find it that important. I googled on Boards and there wasnt a single thread on it. But the question is, why are we only interested in whats happening in rich countries?

Victor

Tombo2001 wrote: »

why are we only interested in whats happening in rich countries?

I was about to answer 'because we are also rich', but that wouldn't be quite right. Pakistan (and much of the 'south') doesn't have much socio-economic impact on Ireland.

However, people have greater interest in Afghanistan because they 'understand' it better (without actually understanding it), despite the two countries being interlinked.