Terrorist attacks committed by Muslims receive 357% more media coverage in the United States than those committed by non-Muslims, according to a new research by the University of Alabama.
The researchers analysed factors like number of fatalities, victim target type, and whether or not the perpetrators were arrested before reaching their final conclusion.
Terrorist attacks committed by non-Muslims received an average of 15 headlines, while those committed by Muslims received 105 headlines.
The findings were based on all terrorist attacks in the US between 2006 and 2015 according to the Global Terrorism Database.
The vast disparity in press coverage is particularly inconsistent with the reality of growing white right-wing terrorists who carried out nearly twice as many terrorist attacks as Muslims between 2008 and 2016.
However, not all headlines have the same audience. Lead researcher Erin Kearns stated: “We broke it down by the two different types of sources and we found that the over-coverage is much bigger among national news sources than local papers.”
The study is forthcoming in Justice Quarterly.
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A previous paper which looked only at the period 2011 to 2015 is also available here.
