Dear, dear.

I'm talking about yesterday. How many people do you think died in Iraq yesterday as a result of bomb attacks? In Afghanistan? Syria? People are dying because of acts like this in those places nearly every day, and they don't get a fraction of the coverage Boston has been receiving.



I suppose you missed the bit where I said:

[i"Yes, it's tragic, and [uby all means cover it[/u, but the wall-to-wall blanket coverage is totally unnecessary."[/i

You'll look much less ridiculous if you actually read what people have posted before you jump feet first into a response.

With it being American, first the news will find out who is dead, then interview the nearest and dearest who are clearly in a state of mourning, every once in a while the camera will flick to the interviewer with their best 'i give a sh-t face'
Then there'll be the man/woman who did something brave or selfless, then there'll be the reuniting those people story, then an amputee crying on operah.
The ego centric american attitude of every thing we do and we are needs to be seen and heard, we are more important, our stories matter.
Meanwhile Iraq goes up the wall but if they're getting their oil cheap in USA it doesn't matter.

The USA doesn't decide what we put on the BBC or ITN.
Something like this gets more coverage than something far worse happening in Iraq because we and our news agencies perceive the USA to be "closer to home" and "more like us" than Iraq, regardless of actual geography.
The emphasis is what we and our news agencies put on it, we shouldn't blame the USA for what our news agencies tell us about.

Justin Webb on R4 this morning actually mentioned the Iraq bombing during the reportage of the Boston bombing, to try and put some sort of scale on it.
The irony was that it was only a mention and then they were back to Boston again.

The problem with our coverage lies with our news agencies.

Your "loads of coverage" is an item on the News.
Whilst Boston is getting blanket coverage which is in no way commensurate with the scale of the occurrence.

Fair do, add UK to my rant

How often do terrorist attacks happen in the US?

Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria are WAR ZONES. It's not really a surprise when people die in war zones, is it?

If 20 British soldiers die because of a bomb in Iraq, isn't that a completely different situation to 20 British soldiers being killed in a bomb in Aldershot?

No one knows who is behind the bombs in Boston. Worst case scenario that DH in North Korea has funded it and the world has a major problem facing it.

This and all the other Brits killed by NORAID did not escape me when i saw the news last night

Fair point and, of course, should be taken into consideration.

I suspect the people kicking up a fuss about news coverage know the reasons full well, but don't let that stop a good moan.

Bombings on US soil are HIGHLY unusual and throw up the possibility of either domestic 'white' terrorism (ie Timothy McVeigh), domestic Islamic terrorism, or overseas terrorism (likely to be Islamic, but rumours of North Korea!). Or something new. An unusual high profile event will always get more coverage than the commonplace.

We (the typical Westernised Brit) relate much more to the US. We have closer ties to them, we see their culture on our TVs almost 24/7. Most of us know many Americans personally, indeed some of us work for American companies and go there regularly. It's the next thing to a bombing on British soil.

There is actual TV footage of one of the blasts, and huge volumes of footage of the aftermath. The scale of media focus in the US is on another level entirely than anywhere else on the planet and guarantees blanket coverage. All news networks want dramatic footage and the Boston bombings have delivered in spades. You even see a runner collapse - what more could they ask!?

A bombing on US soil will trigger a much more high profile reaction. From Obama making a speech (and presumably a visit to the site) to the hunt for the perpetrators, the media will be on hand every moment and our news networks will lap it up - again, an unusual event demands increased focus. If domestic, what measures will be taken? If overseas, what will the reaction be and how far will that reaction go?

Bombings in Iraq are commonplace. As cold-hearted as it is, that's a fact. Footage of Iraqis standing around debris is nothing new. Almost guaranteed to be a Sunni/Shiite attack. It doesn't make it right but there it is.

If you don't like it, complain. But guess what, we've all watched it and the news networks know we'll watch it.

I have no evidence but I'd put money on NORAID funds having dried-up in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 which must, surely, have brought home what it's like to have that kind of stuff going on.
Or am I naive?

I am not suggesting that money is still is being donated in Boston or New York. Well i would hope that it is not

I would like to think that people wouldn't be so stupid as to do that.

You are assuming a certain level of sophistication there. If these were instead more crude devices whoever set them off is probably just pleased they went off and were not found.

One of the first things George W Bush did when he was first installed as President was block Noraid from supporting the IRA. Unlike his predecessor, he recognised the IRA for what it was: a terrorist organisation and legally identified it as such.

I didn't say they had blanket coverage yesterday did I? No. Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria have all been covered in considerable detail for years. We know what goes on there. We know it goes on often. However, what we didn't know until yesterday was that bombs had gone off at the finishing line of the Boston Marathon. So the media told us.

Had those bombs gone off at the finishing line of the London Marathon should they have not received extensive coverage because some more bombs went off in Iraq on the same day? Based on what you and some others have said so far then no, because it wasn't Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria (all known war zones).

I lived in North London in the 80's and 90's and in Kilburn certain Irish pubs collected regularly for the IRA despite the fact the money was as likely to go toward a bomb the people giving the cash might be caught up in as to toward bullets to shoot at squaddies in NI! People [iare[/i stupid and have no idea about the consequences.

I don't know where you get this idea from.
Had those bombs gone off in London, I would certainly expect huge coverage of such an event [uin my own country[/u.
Stop making up things that no-one has said.

That must have been one of the rare decent things that Dubya did whilst US President then.

Not only that but his younger sister had her leg blown off, their Mum was badly injured and their Dad saw it all happen.

But it didn't happen in Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria, it just happened to some Americans, so it really isn't worth reporting according to some.

Again, please stop inventing things that no-one has said.

I'm not making anything up. I'm just following other people's logic. Or are you suggesting that what is happening on here is actually racism? That somehow the lives of Americans are of less value than those in Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria? For the life of me I don't understand the objection to the coverage of a terrorist act, no matter where it happens. That it happens at the end of a marathon in which people are running to raise money for good causes seems to me to be just as sick as it happening between two opposing factions within the same religion.

Indeed. It was one of his better moments.

Without 911 though, it would have been status quo and i am not talking about the rock group.Bit difficult to give it the ''you are either with us or against us'' whilst allowing American dollars to kill Brits

All of the above are excellent arguments for covering the incident, for spending more time on it than on other stories, and for covering it as the first story on each bulletin. I still don't see a need for the total blanket coverage that we had last night and this morning, however. As tragic and unusual as the events were, there were other important things happening that should have been covered as well.

I wouldn't have minded so much if they had something new to say throughout that time, but most of the coverage was simply a repeat of the same few seconds of video footage and extended interviews with literally anyone they could get hold of, whether they had anything relevant to say or not. Of course the events should receive a lot of coverage, but not to the almost total exclusion of everything else. Is [url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/three-children-found-dead-in-lowestoft-after-mother-dies-from-fall-8574031.htmlthis[/url, for example, any less tragic than the events in Boston?