When the office of Charlie Hebdo was stormed, the incident became a pivotal moment for France. It was not an isolated attack on one magazine over its controversial material; it was an attack on all of France, on all of Europe, all of the West, and what it stood for. The media whipped up a frenzy, which spread all around the globe; forcing people declare allegiance through symbolic gestures – you are either with us or one of them. In the shadow of this maelstrom, 2000 people were massacred in Nigeria, and went unacknowledged. Eventually the western media got around to dealing with Nigeria, but even still, Baga is remembered less for the atrocities committed and more for the media’s disproportionate coverage of it. Questions were asked of the media’s integrity and its duty, yet the enormity of Charlie Hebdo led many to give it the benefit of doubt.
The shooting of three Muslim students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina at the hands of a middle aged man, and the subsequent media response is leading to those questions being raised again. The first thing that strikes the viewer is the tone of reporting; gone is the outrage and gone is the sensationalization. Where the Charlie hebdo attackers were branded ‘Islamic Terrorists’ even as the attack was in progress, the Chapel hill shooting is being reported with much circumspection and doubt. The incident is being painted as a ‘dispute over parking space’ where ‘religion might have played a part’, downplaying the fact that the killer was a vocal and violent critic of religion on social media, including Islam, and had previously harassed the religiously dressed victims with a weapon several times. Still, you will find no tag of “atheist extremist” or “terrorism” in any news report. It seems that the perpetrator’s religion and such negative connotations only come into play when the criminal is Muslim and the victims non-Muslim. The integrity of these media houses is left in tatters through such disproportionate and biased reporting. Why should they remain credible when their actions betray a bigoted policy?
Those who defend such reporting claim that the labels are relevant when the act is part of a larger platitude or organisation. But the actions of Craig Stephen Hicks were part of a larger platitude and organisation: Islamophobia. The rising number of attacks against Muslims and their places of worship in Europe are indicative of a wider movement, which is backed up by the same kind of divisive propaganda that drives Islamic extremism. Moreover, even proper organised persecution of Muslims is being ignored; according to Human Right Watch, Rohingya Muslims in Burma are being subjected to mass killings and ethnic cleansing, yet Western media headlines ISIS’s atrocities only. The media’s double standards are increasing the divide and fuelling Islamophobia; ironically becoming the catalyst to the same kind of extremism it condemns so emphaticly.