Why do some attrocities go unpublished while others make headlines for months?

Question

Not down playing anything. Wrong is wrong. But if equal is equal why do attrocites in Chechnya ignored while Iraq makes the front page everytime someone in the coalitions forces passes gas? Who has heard of the following?

The four Russian spetsnaz opened fire on the vehicle carrying six civilians on a quiet road in southern Chechnya. They killed the driver, then realised they had netted not a carload of "terrorists", but a couple of village teachers, a farmer, and a mother of seven children. To cover up their blunder, the Spetsnaz commandoes executed all five survivors, doused the vehicle in petrol and set it alight to pretend that it had hit a landmine. Never made the front page.

The Spetsnaz poisioning of the Shelkovsk school district, poisoning the school children on Chechnyan political leaders.

What's up with that? Not media worthy?

Answer 1

In America, no one cares about Russians. The American public detests the war, and so the media will latch on to that to attract viewers. Also the media probably has a lot more leeway and freedom to ID and document such things in Iraq compared to Russia which is still fairly closed. But again no one cares what Russians do to each other, and there's nothing of economic value in Chechnya. Whereas Iraq is in the middle of the largest oil fields of the world.

It's interesting. In WWII, there was a lot of hoopla about the Holocaust. I would hypothesize that again, white media really detested the idea. . . that white people would do this to each other - but additionally, there was lots of exposure - all the Allied powers were stubbling upon concentration camps, so it was inevitable that news would get out. However in the Pacific, the Japanese had been doing the exact same thing to the Chinese and Koreans for even longer (they invaded well before the Germans even stepped into Czechoslovakia). The Japanese not only had wholesale slaughter of the other Asian populations, but had individually specialized units which experimented in chemical and germ warfare (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731). . . and whom better to work on then civilians - vivasections, injections of everything under the sun, human guinea pigs - much worse that what ever happened to the Jews. But it's never really been well publicized. Why? "Who cares what yellow people do to each other?" At the time (this was well before the civil rights movement), and in a way today, Asians were a subclass compared to their white counterparts. Additionally - which no one likes to publicize either, the Americans kept a lot of what happened as hush-hush because as a stipulation for immunity, the Americans acquired all of the data generated from those experiments for their own uses (something they couldn't do in Europe with so many other countries aware). 50 years later, no one really cares either - hell the Japanese are still in denial that it ever occured.

You could make the same claims of all the genocides which happen in Africa, dictatorships in Asia, etc - just as atrocious yes, but does anyone else care?

So to answer your question (sadly) the media will make things "worthy" according to it's perceived importance to it's audience to make money, not to it's global ethics.

Answer 2

The media in the United States is a big business. This business would not thrive if they did not get advertising dollars. The people in America would not even care about Iraq if we didn't have people getting killed over there. If the news media played news that people cared less about then they would loose ratings. Rating losses means less money for the adds from advertisers.

Answer 3

At this time, Chechnya isn't a "Hot button" location. Plus, if you check the geographical location, Iraq is a prime spot for dropping a free society in place. It will likely do the most damage to the radical Muslim factions influence in the region and taking it a step further, being at Iran's front door isn't bad either.

Not to diminish what happened at all, just analyzing the possibilities as regards to getting the most bang from our buck..so to speak.

And at this time, our relationship with Pootypoot is not as good as we would like it to be. I have to believe it might be one of those classic decisions that relates to giving one enough rope with which to hang themselves. Just some possible scenarios.

Answer 4

It could be the fact that it is old news. The leaders in Moscow have been committing the same crimes for the last 200 years. After a while of reporting them and nothing being done about them it tends to fall off the radar. Yes, they have done far worse than anything in the middle east but they are doing it in their own country so... its all good????????? We see and hear all of the same types of war crimes here in Afghanistan from the 80s but its been to long to do anything about it now. I guess Russia didn't allow enough media coverage here or in Chechnya so nothing will be done about it. Remember reporters and anyone speaking out negitively about the way things are done in russia end up eating a bullet or poison sushi.

Answer 5

thow a dart at a map of the world and you will hit the site of some sort of atrocity. it is a matter of what people are interested in at the moment, in other words, the media covers what will sell papers or get them ratings or whatever.

Answer 6

If it doesn't generate cash, it's not going to be published. Journalism these days is not about reporting the facts, it's about making money. Just because something doesn't make the news doesn't lessen its importance. They'd just mess up the story anyway. I just want the facts.

Answer 7

it all depends on the papers persuasion and what agenda they have...if you haven't noticed 99% of the media in America don't care about reporting facts...rather than giving their opinion on the facts they have seen...and all the media in is business they want to make money...they only print stories that they think will sell...

Answer 8

Government owns media. Media is just the governments lap dog. What we see in mainstream news is NOT the whole truth. Ever.