Do you know about the terrorist attack on June 8, 2016, in which 52 people lost their precious lives? In Darak, a village in Cameroon in Central Africa near the Nigerian border, Boko Haram descended, burned residents’ homes, and shot dead 52 fishermen. Boko Haram is a Sunni Islamist organization established in 2002 in northern Nigeria. The Japanese translation of “Boko Haram” is “Western education is sin,” and the group proclaims that its goal is to implement Sharia (Note 1) and Islamic education in Nigeria. After its founder, Mohammed Yusuf, was killed in 2009, it rapidly radicalized. Its area of activity includes Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, and Chad. In the past, it controlled parts of Nigerian territory and has pledged allegiance to IS (the Islamic State). Many innocent civilians have fallen victim to terrorist attacks carried out by Boko Haram. According to the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), in 2014, deaths from terrorist attacks by Boko Haram and IS accounted for 51% of those from international terrorist incidents, with 6,664 deaths attributed to Boko Haram—exceeding the 6,073 deaths from IS attacks.

Gombe, Nigeria, just after the terrorist attack Photo: Global Panorama (CCBY-SA2.0)

Terrorist attacks by Boko Haram and media coverage

How often are Boko Haram’s terrorist attacks covered by the media in Japan? In 2016, there were 247 terrorist attacks carried out by Boko Haram, resulting in 1,454 deaths. However, among these, only six incidents were actually covered as articles by Japan’s three major newspapers (Asahi, Yomiuri, and Mainichi), with a total of 281 deaths. The Boko Haram attack in Cameroon mentioned at the beginning was not covered even once by any of the three newspapers. It is no wonder that this attack is barely known in Japan. By contrast, there are probably very few people who haven’t heard of the 2016 attack in which a truck plowed into a Christmas market in central Berlin, Germany, or the bombing at Brussels Central Station in Belgium. The death tolls for these attacks were 12 and 17 respectively—less than half the death toll of the attack in Cameroon. Yet these two incidents, especially the Berlin attack, were given extensive coverage by the media, including newspapers and television. Does terrorism coverage in Japan accurately reflect the actual global situation of terrorist incidents?

Trends in coverage of terrorism in Japan

To explore trends in terrorism coverage in Japan, let’s look at the global distribution of deaths from terrorist incidents in 2015 and compare it to the regional distribution of incidents actually covered in the news. The chart below shows the regional distribution of deaths from terrorist incidents that occurred worldwide in 2015. (Note 2)

Approximately 97% of the deaths from terrorism in 2015 were victims of attacks in Asia and Africa. By country, Iraq had the highest number of deaths at 9,355, followed by Afghanistan and Nigeria with 6,469 and 5,638 respectively. In Syria, a conflict zone, terrorist incidents resulted in 4,047 deaths. Meanwhile, the number of deaths from terrorist incidents in North America and Europe accounted for only 2.7% of the total. Of these, 196 deaths occurred in France, including 130 from the Paris attacks. The United States recorded 60 deaths from terrorist incidents, and Russia recorded 21.

Next, let’s look at the regional distribution of terrorist incidents that were actually covered as news in Japan.

About 50% of the coverage related to terrorist incidents was about Europe. Asia accounted for 23.6%, Africa for 12.4%, and North America for 7.8%. (Note 3) According to the regional distribution of deaths, Europe and North America together account for only 2.7%, yet roughly 60% of actual terrorism coverage focused on incidents in these two regions. Coverage of terrorism in Asia and Africa—where 97% of deaths occur—accounted for only 36% of the total, less than half. It is clear that Japan’s three major national newspapers are not accurately reflecting the global situation of terrorist incidents. Furthermore, it shows that terrorist incidents in North America and Europe are far more likely to be covered than those in Asia and Africa. This also instills in people who view the world through newspapers the mistaken impression that terrorist incidents occur more frequently in North America and Europe.

Trends in 2017 coverage and causes of bias

To see whether regional bias still existed in 2017, we compare and analyze the death tolls and volume of coverage of four terrorist incidents that occurred that year to identify more detailed trends. For comparison, we selected the attack in Mogadishu, Somalia—where a truck loaded with explosives detonated, resulting in the highest death toll of 2017; the shooting attack at a restaurant in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, which was not a conflict zone yet had a relatively high death toll; the attack in which a car rammed into pedestrians on Barcelona’s main street; and the attempted subway bombing in London, which occurred in Europe and caused relatively little damage. The chart is below.

Despite there being zero deaths in London, the volume of coverage was the highest among the four incidents. Meanwhile, the attack in Burkina Faso, in which 19 people were killed, was not covered at all by the three major national newspapers in Japan (Asahi, Mainichi, Yomiuri). The London subway incident received more coverage than the attack in Somalia, which had a much higher death toll, and even more than the Barcelona attack in another Western European country that left 13 dead. Let’s consider why this is the case.

We analyze the coverage volume of the four incidents from the perspective of “unexpectedness,” which is likely one of the criteria media use when choosing events to report. Incidents or accidents with a high degree of “unexpectedness” are more likely to attract public interest due to their unusual nature and thus are more likely to be covered. People tend to believe that “in countries not in a state of conflict, incidents such as terrorism that claim multiple lives at once should not occur often.” Within that perception, when terrorist attacks occur in London or Barcelona—places not in conflict and presumed to be peaceful—their unexpectedness makes them more likely to be covered by the media. Somalia, on the other hand, is a conflict zone. It has endured over 20 years without a functioning government. While the north, including the capital, is governed by a transitional administration supported by the United Nations and is relatively peaceful, the south is effectively controlled by al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda–linked group. The attack in Somalia does not qualify as “a terrorist incident in a country not in conflict” and therefore lacks that dimension of “unexpectedness,” but it likely had high news value in that it produced the year’s largest death toll and is said to be the deadliest terrorist attack in Somalia’s history. What about the attack in Burkina Faso? Burkina Faso is a republic that gained independence from France in 1960. Repeated droughts and a lack of natural resources have contributed to extreme poverty compared to other countries in the western Sahara, but it is not a country at war. In other words, the attack in Burkina Faso does meet the “unexpectedness” criterion as defined here. Yet in reality, it received no coverage at all.

Burkina Faso capital: Ouagadougou Photo: Helge Fahrnberger (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Let us consider from another angle why the attack in Burkina Faso, despite having the same “unexpectedness” as the attacks in Barcelona and London, was not covered. First, from the perspective of “ease of empathy.” As discussed in GNV’s “Why is international reporting biased?,” “the closer the race, ethnicity, language, culture, and standard and style of living of those being reported on are to one’s own circumstances, the easier it is to identify with the event and to take interest in it.” Media likely assumed that readers in Japan would be more interested in terrorist attacks in Barcelona or London—places with similar standards of living—than in an attack in Burkina Faso, a poor country in Africa. This can also be explained by the presence or absence of foreign bureaus. None of the three major newspapers has a foreign bureau in Burkina Faso. In fact, their Africa bureaus are only in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Cairo, Egypt. It is hardly possible to cover the entire African region—which accounts for about 30% of global terrorism deaths—with so few bureaus, and many incidents likely go unreported because no one goes to cover them. It is unlikely that any reporting was conducted on the attack in Burkina Faso.

Finally, let’s consider why there was a difference in the volume of coverage between two European countries, the UK and Spain. This difference likely stems from how newspapers allocate their foreign bureaus. All three papers—Asahi, Yomiuri, and Mainichi—have foreign bureaus in London. However, none of them has a bureau in Barcelona; their Paris bureaus also cover Spain. Incidents and accidents that occur in countries or cities with a foreign bureau are easier to cover. That’s because reporters can physically go to the scene immediately after an incident, and they can also return multiple times for follow-up reporting. It is only natural that the incident in London was easier to cover and thus more likely to be featured as an article than the one in Barcelona.

This time, we focused only on coverage of terrorist incidents abroad and examined regional bias, which turned out to be significant: Japanese newspapers are not accurately reflecting the global situation of terrorist incidents. Comparing death tolls and coverage volume in 2015 and looking at the four incidents in 2017, it is also clear that the criterion used by Japan’s three major national newspapers for whether to cover a particular incident is not “how many people were killed.” The media anticipate what will interest us as readers and base their choices on that. But do the interests the media assume for us readers actually match our real interests? Perhaps it is simply hard to take interest because something is not reported, and among readers there are those who care about what the media choose to discard. Shouldn’t the media strive to report in a way that reflects global realities accurately, rather than in ways that narrow the scope of our interests?

Photo: Kaboompics/ kaboompics.com (CC0 1.0）

Footnotes

Note 1: Sharia law is law based on the Qur’an and the sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad.

Note 2: Regions were divided into six according to the standards of the UNSD (United Nations Statistics Division): Asia, Africa, Oceania, Europe, North America, and Central and South America.

Note 3: For GNV’s definition of international reporting, see “GNV Data Analysis Methods [PDF].”

Writer: Satoko Tanaka