Thread: I'm interested in the tendency of some major media to use the term "blast" for planned terror bombing attacks. The use of the term appears to be a way to make it as innocuous as possible as in "blast near girls school kills 50"...which makes it sound like an accident
I believe this is on purpose and that it is often used to reduce coverage of mass murder in the global south and poorer countries. In essence, the same media that was perfectly capable of calling the US capitol riot an insurrection, calls the targeted murder of 50 a "blast"
The same media that seems capable of naming a lynching a lynching, not "man killed by rope", can't seem to use the term "bombing"...or "murder" or terms that indicate human involvement and perpetrators.
I notice also when it comes to bombings in Afghanistan or Pakistan that often target Shi'ite minorities, media in the West doesn't say the victims were targets as Shi'ites. Same media is capable of writing about Islamophobic or racist attacks in the West. Why?
It's wortwhile to ask if terms like "blast" are designed, consciously or subconsciously, to dehumanize victims. A "blast" is a gas leak...a purposeful bombing of a girl's school or mosque in Afghanistan is not a "blast."
I mean no one speaks about the Guernica "blasts" of 1937 do they? The Hiroshima "blast" of 1945. The 9/11 "blast" that hit the World Trade Center? The "blast" that killed JFK...no one says "US President JFK hit with metal object, dies."
Headlines can say "mass shooting" in the US...but can't seem to label 50 murdered in Afghanistan as a mass murder.
It's worth people looking at how they describe victims. Victims need an identity, a humanity and it should be indicated it was not an accident.
This also wasn't a "blast", was it? it was a targeted assassination attempt.
I believe this is systematic. It is across numerous platforms. Did the word "blast" enter the jargon by mistake...or via major wire services? Or was it a conscious effort to downplay mass murders and assassinations, religious massacres, hate-filled attacks?
After all, it does seem that when it happens in the West, the reports say "far-right" and "attack" and "terror." So how come in Afghanistan it's not a far-right terror attack? It's a "blast"...so why not in the US "blasts behind most things that happen"....
I think we can do better. When a girl's school is purposely targeted in a genocidal terror attack...let's do better and not just say "a blast"...
I mean let's be honest, if there was a bombing targeting a school in the West and 50 people were killed and 100+ injured...I don't think it would be just a "blast" and "funerals after blast"...no one says the attack by Anders Breivik was just a "blast" but "massacre", "bomb van"
See, it’s possible to have a headline discussing the target, not a “blast”
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Lod in Israel is the scene of clashes and riots and unfortunately these scenes will remind some of the West Bank and Jerusalem...because also unfortunately some politicians have long wanted to blur the line of Israel and the Palestinian Authority areas; it serves some interests
I would argue that there is a right wing lobby that sought to “annex” part of the West Bank...they say they want to export “sovereignty” but what they ALSO want to do is bring the chaos and clashes of the West Bank into Israel. Instead of stability they want a wider conflict
These are the same voices that oddly advocated for years to encourage destabilizing Jordan...their bizarre goal despite being far-right “pro-Israel” was to create a mass of conflict and blurred borders.
Most of those who shared the video of the people cheering at the Kotel with what appeared to be flames near Al-Aqsa mosque yesterday did so knowing it was a misleading image designed to incite and by doing so they may have contributed to violence.
Many people irresponsibly shared the images with quotes or claims that had nothing to do with the reality of a fire that was caused by mistake and an ending of Jerusalem Day that happened to coincide. They implied a connection.
Many of those who shared it didn’t bother to share any actual reporting by people on the ground, they wanted to spread hate and extremism, their sole goal was to find one of the most extreme images to share.
One issue I've learned during the pandemic is how powerless consumers are. Once I booked a vacation to the Seychelles and the airline arbitrarily changed the dates so I couldn't travel and said I couldn't cancel it either. There was zero recourse to get a refund.
Now I've had a booking I made request to cancel the booking...tell me my confirmed booking requires an arbitrary prepayment and that anyway they are full..."whoops" they listed it online but it's not there...with no recourse to do much about it.
Of course you can leave bad reviews or whatever. But in the end you're just totally powerless. Of course you can be wary of prepayments or read small print about cancellation policies. But that doesn't help when arbitrary changes are made.