Reading the media with a critical eye (as you should: even us) means not only analysing what they say, but noticing what they don’t. Even the mainstream media rarely straight-out make things up (although they are becoming more and more brazen). Most often, they lie by omission: leaving out vital information that can change an entire “narrative”.
This is especially true in crime, most particularly terrorism.
For instance, how often have the media in Australia reported crimes by “youths”, leaving out the key descriptor: “of African appearance”.
Similarly, NZ media reporting local attacks on Asian people mostly refer only to “a man”, “group of men”, or “a large family”.
They’re not always so backwards about coming forward, though. The NZ media seemed quite happy to report when a suspect was “of European appearance”, or drop slighting references to “ Pakeha”. This strongly suggests that the other attackers weren’t “of European appearance” — and why the media don’t want to tell us that.
This brings us to the latest terror attack in Europe (until next week’s one, which almost certainly won’t even make the news here).
“Danish man suspected of killing five in bow-and-arrow attack in Norway,” says Reuters. Other news services almost invariably described the attacker as a “Danish citizen”. Even Twitter’s trending news stuck to the “Danish national” line.
Locally, Newshub likewise jumped on the “Danish citizen” bandwagon. Their lede ran, “A Danish citizen in his thirties has been arrested and charged following a vicious attack with a bow and arrows in the Norwegian town of Kongsberg which killed five people and injured two.”
Hmm. Just any old Danish citizen, then? No clue as to motive or any ideological or religious affiliation?
Nope. Zip. Nada.
But, just to slant suspicion, Newshub goes out of its way to remind its readers about “far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik”.
And that, as far as Newshub seems to be concerned, is all you need to know. No other updates appear to have been filed, at the time of writing.
It’s a similar story, over at Stuff. Their first report referred only to “A 37-year-old Danish man”.
To damn them with faint praise, their second report, the next day, dropped a key piece of information — way down in its tenth paragraph.
This is odd because, in their second paragraph, they give quite a lot of detail about the suspect: “Police identified the attacker as Espen Andersen Braathen, a 37-year-old Danish citizen”. Is that all there is?
Why, no! If any readers actually bothered scrolling down through a whole bunch of filler, they might eventually spot this little throwaway:
Regional Police Chief Ole B Saeverud described the man as being known as a Muslim convert and said there “earlier had been worries of the man having been radicalised”, but he did not elaborate or say why he was previously flagged or authorities did in response.
Stuff
Did you blink and miss it? Muslim convert. “Worries of the man having been radicalised.”
Now, why didn’t Stuff put that right up front with the rest of their description? It’s almost like they didn’t want you to know.
In fact, you have to turn to wicked, right-wing Sky News to find out a whole lotta stuff that the other media seem reluctant to tell you.
Police said the suspect had been convicted several times in the past and confirmed that he had converted to Islam.
He was given a six-month restraining order against two family members last year – believed to be his parents – after refusing to leave their house and threatening to kill one of them.
In December 2017, a concerned friend also flagged up videos that Braathen had put online, reported the Aftenposten newspaper.
Looking into the camera, he’s said to have confirmed he was a Muslim and described himself as a “messenger” with a “warning”, adding that “the time has come”.
Sky
Now, if that wealth of detail is available to Sky in a story filed nearly three hours before Stuff’s last report, what was to stop the intrepid investigative newshounds on the team of $55 million picking it up?
As Mark Steyn once wrote, the airbrush is mightier than the sword.
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