Illustration photo from Flicr account "nrkbeta"
A bomb went off in Oslo and shortly after the youth camp of a political party was under attack as well. The media all over the world went ballistic. It would seem that was the news story of the year. When the bomb went off in the government building Galtung and Ruge`s “news values” were set in motion. However, the media also showed another side of itself in the hours to come by stereotyping. It was almost immediately assumed that it had to be a Muslim terrorist group behind these attacks. The media assumed that there was no one else who could pull this off.
In the book Public Opinion by Walter Lippman, he stated: “pictures have always been the surest way of conveying an idea, and next in order, words that call up pictures in memory’ (Lippmann 2007, p.97). What he means is that pictures in people´s mind are created by the media. He says that people are not relating to incidents in real life, instead they are relating more to pictures of the incidents that the media provides them. Lippmann says that our actions and reactions are not based on facts and direct experienced knowledge but are based on the mental pictures the media has provided us. Media was convinced without evidence that there was a Muslim terrorist group behind the attacks in Norway and so was the population. Right after this was reported, people who looked “Muslim” were attacked all over Norway. However, the media seems to have jumped to conclusions.
“It makes you have to respond to events much faster than it might be prudent, because facts may come in incorrect, but you don’t have time to put them in context, so you respond just to a little nugget of fact, and when you learn the context later, things change.” (Kralev 2001, p.105)
Kralev´s statement proves to be true for this particular news story. Based on events in the last decade in both Norway and internationally, it could seem reasonable to assume that a Muslim terrorist group was behind the attacks in July 2011. Norway has printed caricature drawings of Muhammed, the Islamic prophet. Norway plays host to Mullah Krekar, a known terrorist, who has threatened the state. In 2010, the police arrested three known members of a Muslim terrorist organisation in an attempted attack. In the media`s defense, "Helpers of the Global Jihad", an unknown group up until July 2011, took the responsibility for the latest attacks (Godfrey & Siddique 2011). The media published the news faster than they got the facts in and until the Norwegian police sent out information that it was an ethnic Norwegian behind the attacks, the media had never looked that way.
Eytan Gilboa says in the 2003 report on how television news and foreign policy is linked that it has become a trend that global television coverage has replaced its experts (Gilboa, 2003). As Charlie Brooker stated in his comment about the media coverage of the Norway attacks:
“If anyone reading this runs a news channel, please, don't clog the airwaves with fact-free conjecture unless you're going to replace the word "expert" with "guesser" and the word "speculate" with "guess", so it'll be absolutely clear that when the anchor asks the expert to speculate, they're actually just asking a guesser to guess. Also, choose better guessers. Your guessers were terrible, like toddlers hypothesising how a helicopter works. I don't know anything about international terrorism, but even I outguessed them.” (Brooker, Charlie, 2011)
The coverage
The news coverage the day of the July 2011 attacks in Norway argued that a Muslim terrorist group was behind the attacks. The day after, most opinions had changed. Less then a hour after the bomb went off in Oslo the foreign affair editor for The Observer, Peter Beaumonta, announced that it was most likely a jihadist group behind the blast. “It has been known for some time that al-Qaida core and other related `franchises´ - including in the most active in Yemen – have been attempting to develop operations. Which leads to a second question: why Norway?...The answer to that is three fold. In then first instance, with the increased levels of security and surveillance in the UK and the US as well as other European capitals, Norway might have been seen as a softer target despite the recent breaking up of an al-Qaida cell in Norway.” (Godfrey & Siddique 2011) Almost nine hours later Beaumonta changed his opinion to: “Targeting government offices and the Labour party camp point to political agenda behind attacks rather than Islamist terrorism” (Beaumont, 2011)
Gordon Corera, security correspondent for BBC, stated “that youth rally is not a usual type of target for an Islamist terrorist” (Godfrey & Siddique 2011) on BBC´s Newsnight. This was right before the police confirmed that the attacker was an ethnic Norwegian. The Sun was one of the media outlets who was too fast to print without facts. Saturday morning, UK residents woke up to this title on the front page “`Al-Qaeda´ Massacre: NORWAY'S 9/11” (Twitpic, 2011) Foreign Policy, a news website, was a bit milder then many others, but they, as the rest of the world, pointed towards Muslim terrorists: “Today, at least one bomb went off in Oslo, targeting government buildings. It's far too soon to draw any conclusions about who is responsible for the attacks, but Krekar's long history in Norway will likely be thrust into the spotlight after today's events. An Iraqi Kurd, Krekar fled Saddam Hussein's regime after years spent working with Islamist and jihadi movements. He relocated to Norway under refugee status in 1991. In Oslo, Krekar enjoyed tremendous freedom to operate as a preacher and an organizer.” (Berger, 2011)Weekly Standard was also milder in their language then many others, but it is still clear who they think is responsible for the attacks: “We don’t know if al Qaeda was directly responsible for today’s events, but in all likelihood the attack was launched by part of the jihadist hydra. Prominent jihadists have already claimed online that the attack is payback for Norway’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda and affiliated jihadist groups do not give up on targets easily. From the World Trade Center to U.S. warships, the terrorists have repeatedly sought to avenge failed attacks. The bombings in Oslo today might very well be another example of this obstinacy.” (Joscelyn, 2011)
MSN.com had an article by Robert Windrem, NBC News Investigative Producer for Special Projects, on the 22 July 2011 on why terrorists wanted to attack Norway. Even though he said he did not know if al-Qaida was responsible, he listed four reasons why al-Qaida would have wanted to attack Norway. He did not mention any other reasons why these attacks could have happened. (Windrem, 2011)
Television stations like CNN and FOX held on to their beliefs that it was an Islamic group behind the attacks in Norway for many hours after it was confirmed it was a Norwegian right-wing extremist, Anders Breivik. One of the worst blunders was from FOX news´ Bill O'Reilly a few days after the attacks. He claimed that no Christian could be a mass murder and that the reason why the media would call Breivik a Christian is that "the left wants you to believe that fundamentalists Christians are a threat just like crazy jihadists are." (Huffington Post, 2011) He continues that the media "is pushing the Christian angle [because] they don't like Christians very much because we are too judgmental." (Huffington Post, 2011) CNN did not appear to want to discover that the attacks could be because of any other reason than a Islamic terrorist group. CNN Newsroom had their own correspondents, Cruickshank and Elbagir, to comment: “Well, actually, Norway has been in al Qaeda's crosshairs for quite some time. In 2003, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the now leader of al Qaeda, issued a threat against Norway, singled Norway out. Norway is in Afghanistan, it's part of NATO. But also last year a newspaper in Norway published controversial images of the Prophet Mohammed, republished those images which had been originally published in a Danish newspaper some years back. So many reasons why a group like al Qaeda or another jihadist group may want to come after a country like Norway, Brooke.” (Media Matters, 2011) “We haven't had any serious claims, but what we are seeing on a lot of the pro-jihad forums is a lot of celebration, a lot of jubilation.(...) Many in the intelligence community that I've been speaking to say that their concern is that if it is an Islamic extremist group that has carried out the attack -- that this was done because they believe that Norway was a soft target. You've had several al Qaeda franchises, like al Qaeda in Yemen attempting to hit out Europe and the United States. And they believe that they might have tried to hit Norway because they did not think that their security was really as strong as it could have been.” (Media Matters, 2011)
Experts on the subject
Many in the media started to clean up their mistakes and look back on the reporting that had occurred without facts. The Norwegian Journalism Union (Norsk Journalistlag) had a public convention in the early fall of 2011 to discuss how the different journalists in Norway had covered the events Friday 22 July 2011. Others have commented online. ABC Australia had an article up only a few days after the attacks on how the international media covered the events. They gave the clear definition of a terrorist and had several experts comment on why media immediately jumped to a Islamic terrorist group. Anthony McClellan, the principal of AMC, explained it like this: "Particularly many of the tabloids and ... the tabloid news sites like to interpret mass acts of terrorism, mass violence, through the prism of Muslim terrorism. In other words [they assume] the only real big-style terrorists are Muslims. The brand of terrorism is totally linked in their minds to Muslims and what they do. The fundamental problem they had was that they got it wrong, which defeats the whole purpose of being accurate journalists and running an accurate media." (Hall, 2011) However McClellan also makes it clear that it was not only the tabloids who stereotyped. BBC and The Guardian also had some dirt under their carpets during this case. One of the reasons he gave for this happening was because of the rapid way the newsroom has to give out information. Another expert who commented was Julie Posetti, a journalism lecturer at the University of Canberra. She believes that the stereotyping can lead to unforeseen consequences: "But asking questions and drawing conclusions and then fanning those conclusions without a skerrick of evidence was irresponsible. And more than irresponsible in terms of good journalism practice, it's potentially very damaging to Muslims and people of Muslim background around the world." (Hall, 2011)
Mr Brooke from The Guardian is also afraid that as more information comes out about the attacker, Breivik, it has also led to stereotyping and more evidence for the anti-Muslims to support their case: “Despite this being a story about an anti-Muslim extremist killing Norwegians who weren't Muslim, they've managed to find a way to keep the finger of blame pointing at the Muslims, thereby following a narrative lead they've been fed for years, from the overall depiction of terrorism as an almost exclusively Islamic pursuit, outlined by "security experts" quick to see al-Qaida tentacles everywhere, to the fabricated tabloid fairytales about "Muslim-only loos" or local councils "banning Christmas.” We're in a frightening place. Guesswork won't lead us to safety.” (Brooker, 2011)
The Aftermath
Many journalists have realised what a blunder they made in the aftermath of the attack. It is hard to do research on the first hours of the attack because different news agencies have deleted their posts or updated them with the correct information. The solution has been to rely on many secondhand sources of information about the events. There will be more thorough research on how the media handled the situation in the years to come. There is also little research done on how the media jumps to conclusions without facts and evidence. It does not mean it is not out there, but most of the research is done on how media, with their stereotyping, changes the public opinion. Jumping too fast to stereotyping is not unheard of as in the case of the 1995 Oklahoma bombing that also suffered by the reporting of assumptions rather than facts. "The Oklahoma City bombings in the United States in 1995 had a similar phenomenon happen where the media immediately came out and started talking about this as though it was likely to be a Middle Eastern plot. What it does show is that the coupling of terrorism and Muslims in the public imagination and in the media discourse around terrorism is really solidly entrenched." (Hall, 2011) Hopefully, the press has learned something from these two incidences and can look back at the examples and say, “we won´t do that next time.” Journalists are allowed to be wrong but they have a social responsibility to learn from them so that ethnical groups do not continue to be falsely accused.
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