Biased Coverage of Bias Crime: Examining Differences in Media Coverage of Hate Crimes and Terrorism

What is terrorism (according to the news)? How the German press selectively labels political violence as “terrorism”

“…However, journalists feel compelled to rely on it as recipients expects them to or governmental sources use the term (Abubakar, 2020). Importantly, studies indicate systematic differences in which attacks are called terrorism (Betus et al, 2020; Ghazi-Tehrani and Kearns, 2020). Two aspects influence selective coverage, although their impact has mostly been analysed concerning the volume of coverage, not its content (Mitnik et al, 2020): incident and perpetrator characteristics.…”

“….] lead to more mortality salience, which fosters intergroup bias.’ Similarly, Ghazi-Tehrani and Kearns (2020) illustrate that US news outlets are more likely to cover an incident as terrorism the more deaths it caused. Nagar (2010) shows that groups which perpetrate lethal attacks are more often portrayed as terrorists in the news, independent of where their attacks occurred.…”

“…Studies analysing whether attacks on civilians receive more coverage do not find consistent associations (Chermak and Gruenewald, 2006; Mitnik et al, 2020); however, almost none have analysed how the type of victim influences labelling. Ghazi-Tehrani and Kearns (2020) illustrate that attacks on some targets, for example, law enforcement or the government, are less likely to be covered with references to terrorism than those on other targets – but their comparison category of ‘other targets’ is not limited to civilians. Thus, it is unclear whether targeting civilians and tourists as victims audiences and journalists can more easily identify with influences labelling.…”

“…Consequently, Betus et al (2020) find that attacks by formal groups are more likely to be covered with references to terrorism. Otherwise, they are portrayed as acts by perpetrators with mental illnesses (see similarly Ghazi-Tehrani and Kearns, 2020).…”

“…When a white supremacist targeted a church in Charleston, however, news was more hesitant to use the term (de Veen and Thomas, 2020). Consequently, journalists (Fisher, 2017) and researchers (Betus et al, 2020; Ghazi-Tehrani and Kearns, 2020) have started to question whether news is too selective, even biased in which attacks are called terrorism – and which are not.…”