Do easy targets get disproportionally villianised in the media?

steddyeddy

Right now the media are focusing on the execution of the Bali nine and the executions taking place there. When people talk about negative treatment of homosexuals the media often focuses on Nigeria. When we talk about sexism the story that comes up is one scientist who wore a shirt.

The thing that gets me is that first world countries like America execute people all the time. Are we covering those executions? Homosexuals and women are treated appallingly in Saudi Arabia yet the big story is a scientist wearing a shirt or how homoesexuals are treated in Nigeria.

I'm not in anyway minimising the first stories (except the scientist one as it was BS) but I think first world countries get off lightly.

Sunnyisland

Happens all the time.
Thousands of people are murdered/die every day in this world yet when it's one of our own,as in first world western countries, it's like the end of the world,the shock and mock outrage, sure what can you do...

fleet_admiral

Like Men? We are always portrayed as gullible buffoons in the media

DareGod

I thought this was gonna be about Iggy Azalea.

I'll leave the grown-ups to talk!

StewartGriffin

The news media are all about selling a news product.

Eugene Norman

steddyeddy wrote: »

Right now the media are focusing on the execution of the Bali nine and the executions taking place there. When people talk about negative treatment of homosexuals the media often focuses on Nigeria. When we talk about sexism the story that comes up is one scientist who wore a shirt.

The thing that gets me is that first world countries like America execute people all the time. Are we covering those executions? Homosexuals and women are treated appallingly in Saudi Arabia yet the big story is a scientist wearing a shirt or how homoesexuals are treated in Nigeria.

I'm not in anyway minimising the first stories (except the scientist one as it was BS) but I think first world countries get off lightly.

Actually America is over covered. Iran has jus executed t it's 300th or so prisoner this year.

Journalists are lazy. Most articles are based on material that has been given to them, usually press releases from companies or NGOs. Examples get recycled.

Cold War Kid

There was huge criticism of the whinging about the scientist's shirt.

We're made well aware of the appalling state of affairs in Saudi Arabia.

Not every execution in America is covered by the international news, no, but neither is every execution in Indonesia.

I'm not a fan of this "liberal guilt" stuff (and I'd be a liberal myself).

LadyAthame

It depends on where you read.

The only reason the Bali people are getting any coverage here is because of their Western victims. I only wish there was greater coverage of the various atrocities around the world, not just the ones that threaten western values either, like Europeans joining ISIS for example.

Boko Haram are every bit as savage as ISIS and sweep from area to area killing hundreds, if not thousands of men, women and boys, kidnapping girls and maiming and mutilating others, and there isn't a fraction of the coverage. Ebola killed tens of thousands in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, but one English nurse got as much coverage as all the African victims combined.

It's not so much about easy targets, just targets in the news closer to home or those that might adversely affect us directly at some point.

Eugene Norman

Mexican drug violence is also not covered. I used to live there and so I get my News from Mexican Twitter feeds. It's surreal what is happening there and is not covered. Deaths in America get far more coverage here.

Eugene Norman

Case in point is the thread about Baltimore right now. The title and most of the commentators don't even reference that that's happening in a different country.