Media & Social Media Response To Paris Attack Raises Questions

There is no question that the attacks in Paris are a tragedy, and it is moments like this that the world should come together as one to show support for our fellow man, however the term “fellow man” should extend to all branches of the planet, despite race, culture, religion, or location. A day before the attacks in Paris, another attack being claimed by ISIS took place in Beirut, killing 43, and wounding 239 others. In January of this year, 2,000 Nigerians lost their lives in the massacre in Baga, and 147 lost their lives in a terrorist attack at a university in northern Kenya. No flags flew at Facebook, YouTube, or any of the other various sites that are currently standing in solidarity with Paris, and many are questioning why this is.

“Hey Facebook can we get a Beirut color option also for profile pics,” tweeted comedian,Sanjay Manaktala.

“Let us not forget, 43 people died in Beirut and 200 were wounded on Thursday,” Bette Midlertweeted.

All social-media aside, the fact that the mainstream media has scrambled to cover the events in Paris has not gone by unnoticed either. The New York Times has published an article specifically covering this issue. According to them, multiple news networks began to mobilize and dispatch as many correspondents to Paris as possible, with CNN alone dispatching an estimated 70 people by Saturday.

Within all this coverage, it is being said that the Paris attacks bore a sophistication level that hasn’t been seen since al Qaeda’s attack on 9/11, and the London transport attacks of 2005, both of which many around the world believe were false flag attacks. Now reports are surfacing that the Paris attacks may lead to a military escalation against the Islamic State by the United States.

Taking everything into consideration, it is indeed questionable that social and mainstream media outlets covered the attacks in Paris so intensely while numerous other massacres have gone by unnoticed. As with nearly every major tragedy of this sort, we are left with more questions than answers, and numerous uncertainties. Between the appalling lack of news coverage over the various other attacks around the world, and Western society’s lack of compassion for those areas simply accepted as being “war-torn”, it would come as no surprise if most readers had never heard of these incidents.

In an article for the AnitMedia, journalist Claire Bernish had this to say:

“Without question, I mourn for Paris’ recent victims and their families—and I would never claim knowledgeable firsthand experience of the same. But I refuse—despite my partial French heritage—to cloak myself in nationalism of any stripe or star, particularly not now. Because, besides victims in Paris, an incomprehensibly astronomic number of people have been grieving loss of the highest order for some time—in places whose names roll off our tongues as if it’s accepted that violence simply happens there—and a majority likely couldn’t guess the colors on these victims’ flags.”

The point Bernish is trying to make is that we are all part of the human species, and every human life has just as much worth as the next. For centuries, we as human beings have separated ourselves from one another with invisible lines that we call borders, and within these invisible lines, we gather together as clans, thinking of ourselves as different from everyone else, and openly fighting the other clans for a little more dirt. Sounds primitive, does it not?

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