Boko Haram Kidnapping Receives Little US TV News Attention Vs Six Years Ago While International Outlets Emphasize Group
The kidnapping of more than 300 schoolboys in Nigeria by Boko Haram earlier this month received widespread media coverage except, it seems, on American television news. This is in stark contrast to the attention that the kidnapping of 300 schoolgirls 6 years ago. The timeline below shows the number of monthly mentions of Boko Haram on CNN, MSNBC and Fox news over the past decade, showing a surge in 2014 when Boko Haram seized roughly 300 schoolgirls, but just a handful of mentions this month with the kidnapping of an equal number of boys under similar circumstances.
The 2014 kidnapping represented a new tactic by the group while the 2020 kidnapping came admist a historic US election and global pandemic, but the graph below reminds us just how much our understanding of global events is shaped by what our media outlets choose to cover and not cover. Most importantly, that nearly identical events can receive very different coverage.
Mentions of Nigeria and Katsina also show no surge, confirming the event received little attention.
At the same time, the chart below shows the total number of mentions of Boko Haram across a set of international television news channels in comparison with the US channels since January 2018 (the start of the data). Al Jazeera has covered the group the most, followed by DW, RT and BBC. The contrast between international attention to the group over the past 3 years compared with the US is starkly visible.
