On Sunday, 69 people were killed in a park in Lahore, the second largest city in Pakistan.
The victims were civilians.
Most were women and children.
Later in the day, the Taliban claimed responsibility.
On March 20, a suicide bomber killed four people at a tourist destination in Istanbul, Turkey. On March 25, there was an ISIS attack in Yemen that killed 22 people.
Last week had a high death toll for the Islamic world, yet many of these events were not heavily reported by the media.
In contrast, the Brussels attack was reported extensively by most major news sources.
All of these attacks were tragedies and showed cracks in national security for all nations.
Every country must quickly address incorporating stricter security measures.
However, if the media wants to be fair and unbiased, all of these acts should have been reported with close to the same frequency.
While the Taliban’s attack on Pakistan is receiving the attention and reporting it deserves, the attacks in Turkey and Yemen were underreported.
In Istanbul, two victims were American-Israeli dual citizens. In Yemen, the Islamic State targeted military and civilian centers.
I think reporting all of these events is important. Not just because the victims deserve for their stories to be told, but also because we deserve to know what is going on in the world.
The United States Census reported in 2005 there were 205,000 American citizens of Pakistani descent in the U.S. That number was expected to grow.
Turkey is a popular destination for travelers to Europe.
While Yemen may not be a popular destination for Americans, the country’s civil war directly impacts us as it gives a safehold to terrorist groups like Al-Qaida.
By reporting terrorist attacks fully, news organizations provide us information that influences who we vote for and how we view national security risks.
Additionally, by underreporting attacks that occur in predominantly Muslim countries, the media is pushing, consciously or unconsciously, a bias that says terrorists only attack Westerners, not Muslims.
This creates an us-versus-them mentality that divides Muslims from the Western world.
In reality, Muslims are more vulnerable to attacks by radical Islamists than any other people just by proximity. Yemen has been a hotbed of radical Islam since the Arab Spring, and ISIS has threatened to take over Turkey.
Through fair reporting, the media would lessen the bias against Muslim-Americans and help civilians make decisions on travel and national security matters.
Moreover, it provides a more accurate view about the world which, as a global society, we desperately need.
npatwari@indiana.edu
