In the wake of the Garland, Texas shooting, ISIS has arrived in the United States. Fortunately, no one died, except for two would-be assailants who wanted to kill participants in a Muhammad cartoon contest organized by Pamela Geller, a blogger and president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative. Now, as the media blithely tries to talk about what is hate speech? freedom of speech – let’s not forget that it’s the police we should really be concerned about, or at least that’s what the Big Three think. Media Research Center analyzed media coverage throughout April from the Big Three – ABC, NBC and CBS – and found that these networks 6x more coverage was provided to alleged police misconduct than ISIS terrorist activity. For example, ISIS has been busy trying to recruit Americans, Britons and other citizens to carry out terrorist attacks, as well as preparing its luxury hotel in Mosul for operations:
In April, allegations of police misconduct accounted for one in seven minutes of evening news airtime, or 3 hours and 43 minutes, according to a up-to-date poll by the Media Research Center.
That’s three times more airtime than the second most-covered topic, the 2016 presidential campaign (1 hour, 18 minutes) and nearly six times more airtime than the Big Three devoted to the terrorist threat from the Islamic State in April (38 minutes, 45 seconds).
NBC Nightly News devoted the most airtime to the topic of police abuse (1 hour and 27 minutes), followed by CBS Evening News and ABC World News Tonight (1 hour, 8 minutes and 1 hour, 5 minutes, respectively).
Protests over the death of Freddie Gray in police custody, including the subsequent riots in Baltimore, attracted the most attention, with 1 hour and 48 minutes of airtime. The shooting of a suspect by a Tulsa sheriff’s deputy attracted 29 minutes of airtime, followed by the videotaped shooting of a fleeing suspect by a South Carolina police officer (24 minutes).
Despite the relative lack of interest in network news, April saw no shortage of news about ISIS. On April 2 and 3, three American women were arrested for trying to join ISIS; later that month, more U.S. and British citizens allegedly tried to join ISIS. On April 16, NBC reported that an Ohio man had returned to the United States after receiving terrorist training with ISIS.
Of course, the police do not pose as much of a threat as ISIS, although Nebraska state senator Ernie Chambers may not match. Regardless, while cases of alleged police misconduct are worthy of attention in lithe of events in Ferguson and Staten Island, threats to national security rank just as high in terms of importance. It should be fascinating to see how the media continues to cover ISIS — and other terrorist threats — as 2016 approaches, given that confidence in foreign policy has returned to Republicans. The rise of ISIS tipped the scales in favor of incumbent Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who unseated then-Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) in the 2014 midterm elections; Hagan came under fire when she admitted that she left a secret Armed Services Committee hearing on ISIS to attend a fundraiser in New York.
It’s unclear whether the “security moms” will return. If they do, it’s unclear whether they’ll support Hillary. The 2016 election is shaping up to be potentially more focused on foreign policy than usual. At the same time, it’s not as if the former won’t have a huge presence, either. That’s at odds with the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants mantra that Team Clinton is sure to employ as the election season heats up.
