You may not know that a bomb went off outside the Colorado Springs NAACP building on Tuesday morning, unless, that is, you’re on Twitter. By Tuesday night #NAACPBombing was the number 1 trending topic on Twitter. But as far as mainstream media coverage, there was very little:
In a time when racial tensions in our country appear to be growing, the troubling nature of this act of domestic terrorism should be blatantly obvious, but the lack of mainstream media coverage of the bombing for most of Tuesday morning, afternoon, and night was downright disturbing. CNN released its first piece about the bombing a full 16 hours after it happened, and the incident wasn’t mentioned on national nightly news broadcasts.
Not surprisingly, there has been lots of frustration that our news cycle is more willing to cover international events over what is happening in our own racially divided backyard.
Team Blackness also discussed the “diversity” of the 114th Congress, the human paintball bullet tester job that everyone wants, and Phylicia Rashad’s defense of Bill Cosby.
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Corner Stone
I’ve seen it everywhere I have been on the internet news sites and blogs. Haven’t watched much TV over the last few days except the early coverage of Paris on MSNBC but saw they mentioned it on Wednesday several times.
I guess CNN and Fox aren’t saying much about it?
CONGRATULATIONS!
It’s been on my Google news feed solidly since yesterday, and from a number of major media outlets.
It wasn’t their number one story but I kind of understand why, given yesterday.
@Corner Stone: It was on CNN’s front page yesterday but not the headline story. It will be a cold day in hell before it’s ever acknowledged on Fox.
Violet
@Corner Stone: The Today Show included it in their news roundup segment the following morning. Short video of it, discussion of the white suspect, the fact that the gas canister didn’t ignite, no one injured or killed.
CarolDuhart2
I don’t get the “nobody was killed”, so it wasn’t important deal. Killing was the intent, and the only reason it didn’t happen was:
1)poorly contructed
2)luck
BTW, if Tim McVeigh’s truck had been a fizzle, and McVeigh had run off, would the press still consider it “not newsworthy”? If the hijacked planes had crashed before they got to the towers? What if Lee Harvey Oswald had missed President Kennedy because someone caught him before he could fire or distracted him?
#OnlySomeLivesMatter
c u n d gulag
Conservatives will claim this was a false-flag operation, started by radical socialists and communists in the “Blah” movement.
And that it can’t be terrorism, even if it was a white person who did it.
Because white people can’t be terrorists.
Only minorities and non-Christians can be terrorists.
Oy!
Corner Stone
@CarolDuhart2:
Is there a link to someone stating that position? I’m not sure I’d actually like to read it but it may help me filter them out in the future.
Betty Cracker
I wish listening to podcasts didn’t make me want to jam chopsticks through my eardrums, because I’m interested in y’all’s take on Phylicia Rashad’s comments. Maybe some kind soul will summarize for me…
Violet
@CarolDuhart2: The first attack on the World Trade Center got some attention but not a huge amount and it faded. The second one that happened on September 11, 2001 that achieved its goal got a lot more attention.
It may be wrong but if it bleeds it leads. A failed bombing of a flyover state office where no one was injured or killed? Barely registers.
lol
@Corner Stone:
Just commentary on the “If it bleeds, it leads” style journalism in this country. No one died or was even injured so the media feels safe ignoring it.
No doubt, if someone had been killed, Fox would be asking if the NAACP bore responsibility for inciting people to attack them with irresponsible rhetoric like “racism is a thing that exists” and “white supremacism is bad”.
Another Holocene Human
The white out of the TV news.
Look at who all the executives are.
The more info that comes out, the more evidence that, yes, this was a deliberate hate crime attack. Fortunately the device didn’t function as planned. It wasn’t a construction accident, gas leak, or violence directed at some other target. Although the baldie-with-a-grudge-against-barbers jokes have been flowing.
Nope, can’t talk about white American terrorism, move along, nothing to see here.
ruemara
I’m just waiting for a condemnation by President Romney of the white culture of violence and ban on high waisted trousers with onions on the belt.
Mart
In STL think the male news talking head on NBC Channel 5 may be a bit of a comrade. They covered the bombing in some detail last night, just ahead of the weather. Most surprising to me, they actually used terrorist/ism to describe the actions of the domestic attacker.
Corner Stone
@lol:
Surely you’d agree that if that had unfortunately happened then they stated those things knowing the potential consequences?
sharl
Meanwhile, over at Wikipedia’s post for 2015 world-wide terrorist incidents…
Another Holocene Human
@CONGRATULATIONS!: To be fair, that gen aviation crash with the child survivor was like the top story on CNN going into the weekend and all weekend. They couldn’t shut up about that shit.
It’s sad, but tens of thousands die in cars every day, pretty much the same thing, just less d-bags can afford the prop and the pilot’s license.
Another Holocene Human
Imagine if CNN spent that much coverage time on a schoolkid shot by stray bullets in Chicago. They might blather long enough somebody might ask the million dollar question, which is why Chicago’s homicide clearance rate sucks so goddamn much, and maybe that’s why their homicide rate is an outlier for major cities. One would expect day one they’d still be talking about gun-running from MS or IN’s lax laws, which is a piece of the puzzle but just a piece.
Bob In Portland
Would have been the ideal segue: “And in other terror news…”
So let’s see all the hands here of people thinking that they’re getting the whole truth from their media?
Another Holocene Human
@Corner Stone: Not to make a false equivalence here, but civil rights leaders routinely received death threats in the 60s (not to mention the firebombings), and so did Charbonnier (as well as being subject to the 2011 attack). He knew he was taking a risk baiting some pretty terrible people. That’s hardly victim blaming, that’s just a realistic assessment of the circumstances and in both cases, they decided that to proceed with their activities was worth the personal risk. Charbonnier posted about it on social media. And if the victims of right wing terror can make the distinction, so can you.
Corner Stone
@Another Holocene Human: God in His Heaven.
gvg
@CarolDuhart2: Yes if no one was killed in your examples, most of us would never have heard of them. the plane crashing before the towers would have still killed passengers and crew so we would have heard of it.
There ARE actually a lot of bad events that don’t quite happen so many that we can’t go into panic about them all.
Frankly I suspect if you looked into it, there have been lots of close calls outside NAACP offices over the decades that you didn’t hear about. Its not like bad attitude racists are NEW. Would the NAACP bother to have come into existance if there weren’t things like that and worse happening? What if’s are way too easy to speculate about too.
And also yes the newsworthy competition isn’t exactly the same on any given day so its always somewhat luck. I wonder if we would be paying attention to France if say the 3 mile island meltdown happened today? There can always be something even worse.
Heliopause
@CarolDuhart2:
Just off the top of my head: the Shoe bomber, the Underwear Bomber, the Times Square Bomber. All failed terror attacks, no casualties, enormous coverage from the MSM.
Heliopause
@CarolDuhart2:
Also, the FBI stages failed terror attacks in sting operations and they always get a fair amount of publicity.
Elizabelle
@Heliopause:
Silly rabbit. Those attacks are also likely to take out a boatload of white people too.
You’re welcome.
NotMax
Untrue statement. Confirmed by others here that CBS reported on what few details were known at that time. Willing to hazard a guess that NPR and/or PBS did as well.
D58826
@Violet: In addition to the reasons you listed, the local authorities and FBI have not come out with any type of motive. They don’t even have a real suspect. They do have a middle aged white guy as a ‘person of interest’. At the moment there is not a lot to build a ‘white racist terrorism’ case. Now I would not be surprised if that’s is what it turns out to be but at the moment the speculation is far out running the evidence. Now it is true that the bomb went off outside the office of the NAACP but it also went off outside a barbershop. Who knows maybe somebody had a grudge against the barber. Maybe it was a ham handed way to destroy the building to collect insurance money. Folks went off half-cocked on the Univ. of Va rape case and the Duke rape case among others. Lets let the FBI do its job before bringing the KKK back to life
CarolDuhart2
Unless it’s organized crime, a bomb for a barber shop isn’t too likely. Attacks on such places are usually robbers or some sort of domestic thing. And those are gunmen. I don’t recall Colorado Springs being much of a hub of organized crime. But the NAACP would be the target of bombers just for being there.
Keith G
NPR’s Here and Now (ya know the totebagger folks that some of you geniuses like to discount) ran a very full 5 min segment on this. I listened to it on my way home from work.
D58826
@CarolDuhart2: All true but if this guy was a nut then who knows what might set him off. Who would have thought somebody would shot up a class of 1st graders? Lets just let the investigators do their job before complaining that it isn’t getting enough news coverage
Keith G
@Heliopause:
Jumping Jesus, the silliness burns.
Times Square – one of the busies commercial/tourist centers in the US and in our media center.
Underwear bomber (and the shoe dude) – On a fucking airplane, Jack.
Colorado Springs NAACP – A vacant office in a one story, small commercial building on a low density residence block in the 41st largest city in the US (note, the NCAAP office was unoccupied at the time, but an adjoined barber shop was occupied)
I understand that much of the time, our news media act like they have has no more commitment to journalism than does a lower GI microbe, but the examples used above to show some type of malfeasance are just plain daft.
Had the bombing been more successful, the resulting carnage would have made it irresistible, and economically more feasible to send a “face” out there to do a stand up.
I for one am really fucking happy that the physical results of the bombing made it easy to file it as a secondary story and not a lead off.
Heliopause
@Keith G:
Couple of things.
First, I wasn’t commenting specifically on the recent NAACP incident but on the point that a lack of a body count explains how much coverage a terror attempt gets. Obviously, other factors are at play.
Second, since you brought up Times Square, a good comparison would be the failed bombing of the MLK parade in Spokane. Now, if you live east of the Mississippi I forgive you if you weren’t aware that Spokane is in fact a large city which draws thousands to its MLK parade. The Spokane incident, which would have generated quite a few casualties if successful, received some national coverage, though dwarfed by the Times Square incident and the others I mentioned.
Lee
One of the things I’ve read is that the tax office is also located in the same complex and you can’t discount the idea that it was an inept libertarian (Colorado Springs being a libertarian hotbed)
The other take away from this is that I’m glad we are no longer pissing our pants with every attempted bombing.