Headline News

As we all know this past week there was a terrorist attack in Jerusalem. To us, in the Jewish world, it was a very big deal. In the greater, global perspective however, it did not seem to have that much of an affect. On the day of the bombing, March 23, 2011, soon after the bombing had occurred, you would assume that a terrorist attack would be front and center on the New York Times website. That was not the case. Rather, the death of Elizabeth Taylor made headline news, while a terrorist attack in Israel was simply cast aside to the bottom left corner of the website, where if not searching for it, one may have completely overlooked it. Furthermore, it was a very short, rather casual article, giving very few details. That may be due to the fact that reporters may not have had that much information at that point, but nevertheless, the article did not reflect the seriousness of the issue. 

Later that day, I went to check the New York Times website again, where I found that a new article was posted, one that had much more detail. However, the article was still placed near the bottom of the website, making it something that a reader had to search for, rather than it being breaking, headline news. Similarly, the wording of the article was "small bomb," small being the second word of the article and a word that downplays the significance of the attack. Today, looking at the article again, I have noticed that the word "small" has been removed, however, on the day of the explosion it did exist. 

If a terrorist attack like this happened in another country, wouldn't it have gotten more attention? If a family was slaughtered in the middle of the night in the United States, wouldn't there be an uproar? If all these events were happening anywhere but Israel, I have a feeling that it would make headline news and that sadly people would give it slightly more attention.