11 February 2017

One story, two headlines

The recent arrest of four Daesh-related would be terrorists in France isn't, probably, something outstanding or even surprising these terror-filled days. However, it's interesting to watch how the coverage of the story differs from place to place.

Here is a snapshot of the front page from a French source (English version of France 24):

The gist of the story is succinctly summarized in the lede of the article:
Anti-terrorism forces arrested four people Friday in southern France, including a 16-year-old girl, and uncovered a makeshift laboratory with the explosive TATP and other ingredients for fabricating a bomb.
Nothing of substance was forgotten, even the somewhat secondary in its importance fact that one of the four plotters was a 16-year-old girl. Here is the full article, if you want to know more.

And here comes the front page from CNN, the relevant item circled in red:


As you can see, the 16-year-old girl became the main feature of the story. At least if you, like 99% of the Internet surfers, skim the surface of the front pages. If you are such a busy surfer, you might be also unaware of the sad fact that 16-year-old girls (and younger) are quite able to - and frequently do - push the button of their suicide belt, stick a knife into the back of a human being, squeeze the trigger of a gun etc. Provided sufficient motivation/brainwashing and tools, of course.

But we wouldn't want y'all to become paranoid, would we? Or to start complaining incessantly about the media? Right?

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