On Monday, much of the world stood still as reports started pouring out of Blacksburg, Va.: a shooter on the Virginia Tech campus claimed the lives of 32 innocent students and professors before killing himself. Every news channel carried their coverage of the atrocity through the night, and Tuesday morning's papers covered their front pages with heart wrenching pictures from the scene.
On Wednesday, suspected Sunni insurgents set off four bombs at Shiite targets killing 183 people in Baghdad. The International Herald Tribute (a New York Times Company paper based in Paris) had the story front and center Thursday morning.
Most U.S. papers like The Buffalo News, however, opted to push the story inside. Instead, again like the News, they splashed oversized pictures of Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui across their front pages - images taken from the killer's home videos sent to NBC during his two-hour break in his rampage.
To their credit, The Washington Post kept the bombings on their front page - it occupied one column near the bottom of the page, sitting in the shadow of a package devoted to Seung-Hui. The New York Times at least ran a photo with the bombing story on their front page, but the shooter was still the major package. The Los Angeles Times was one of America's only major papers to actually run it as a lead story.
So what makes 33 deaths in Virginia on Monday more newsworthy now than 183 deaths in Iraq on Wednesday?
Ethnocentrism.
There's no doubt or debate that the events that unfolded earlier this week in Virginia were tragic for our nation and the world. Whenever violence so unfairly and unexpectedly impacts as many people - victims, their families and friends, fellow students and the college community worldwide - as the Virginia Tech shootings did, it becomes the only news anyone cares about.
But what about the violence and injustices that happen much more often worldwide? There always seem to be stories that outmuscle reports of war deaths from top billing. And when was the last time a story about Darfur was on the average American front page?
Pick up the "world news" section of a U.S. newspaper and one from an international paper (or try an American world news TV show and a British or Canadian one easily available on cable) and compare them. Just from the top stories alone it's clear: our mass media lives in a distinctly American world.
Whether American, Iraqi or any other nationality, a life is a life and many lives are many lives. When many lives are lost - whether to terror, disasters or famine - they deserve respectful coverage no matter what country they're from. It's not just a matter of international respect; it's a matter of respect for mankind.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
