The news story that I chose to write about is the deadly attacks in Norway which happened on Friday, July 22, 2011, as covered by the press on Monday July 25th. This news story is being reported in the style of a breaking news, an ongoing news story that requires frequent updating. The attacks in Norway consisted of a bombing outside the government’s headquarters in Oslo followed by a deadly mass shooting in an island near Oslo in which a youth summer camp run by the Norwegian Labor Party was held. The number of casualties which was reported on July 25th totaled in 76, of which 8 people were killed in the bombing, and 68 were killed in the shooting in the summer camp. The attacks were done by Anders Behring Breivik, a 32 year old Norwegian man, who holds extreme right-wing ideologies of anti-Muslims and anti-immigrants views.
The media sources that I’ve looked at were the articles published on-line on the official websites of The New York Times, USA Today, BBC, Fox News, CNN, and Y-Net (News website of a national Israeli newspaper). Hyper-links to these articles are listed below.
At a first glance, I observed that all of these media sources except of the Israeli one had published their articles under a somewhat similar title referring to the finding that the suspect may have had accomplices of two more cells. The Israeli website published the article under a title which refers to the suspect’s blaming of the Norwegian government of supporting Muslim immigration. In addition, the topic and the hyper-link to the article were more visible and dominant on the BBC home-page, next, listed by order of apparent importance were The New York Times, USA Today, CNN, Fox News, and finally Y-Net. The BBC showed a large image and listed the topic as the first top story on their home-page; The New York Times displayed a smaller image and listed the story relatively at the center of their home-page and right next to the news about the Senate and House split over debt plans; USA Today had no image on their home-page and listed the article as the first link of the top ten listed stories; CNN listed the article on the left panel of their home-page in a dedicated section for the latest from the Norwegian news and just below NFL news; Fox News published the article somewhat in the middle/secondary section of their home-page under their latest news section; and Y-Net listed the article under the news box section which appeared further down on their home-page after local news highlights and other top stories of different sections.
Despite the different formats and layout of the websites, all articles covered the latest news of the day about the event, which evolve around the fact that the suspect appeared before court, and that the total number of casualties were a little less than as reported initially. The media reported that the suspect wished to use his appearance in court to express his manifest to the public, calling for actions against immigrants and Muslim influence on the Norwegian Christian values and culture. The court did not provide him with this option as it did not want to enable him to promote his extreme ideology and his hate crimes, and instead held a closed hearing.
While the different news websites all reported on similar topics, such as, the number of casualties, the hearing behind closed doors, the killer’s manifest and radical views against Muslims and immigrants, I’ve found that Fox News was the only one not to provide any coverage about the reaction of the public in Norway who were grieving and mourning on the tragic event, and as well, on the Norwegian Prime Minister’s response, of maintaining an open democratic society. USA Today as well did not provide much on this issue, but did mention the public grief. In addition, only Fox News and CNN reported on the connection of the suspect and the additional cells to the new Knights Templar, the medieval cabal of crusaders who protected Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land, and that European security officials were aware of the existence of the Knights Templar group and individuals who belong to this group. Finally, I found it interesting that the Israeli news website, Y-Net, also mentioned that the suspect’s manifest includes a support for Israeli nationalism as part of the global fight against Islamic control.
While in general I felt that all the websites provide similar information on the major events, it was interesting to observe some differences. It was evident and perhaps reasonable that the BBC being a European news source had put more focus on the event on their website home-page, while the American news sources incorporated the news among the top stories while still emphasizing local national news as well. Also, Y-Net, the Israeli news source included a specific reference which relates in some degree to local Israeli readers. I chose to include CNN since it is considered to be a popular source to obtain international news, Fox News as I was interesting to examine their reporting style, and Y-Net, which is an Israeli news website in Hebrew, which I’m familiar with and was curious to examine how the news are reported there.
Links:
The New York Times
USA Today
BBC
Fox News
CNN
YNet
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