Network and cable television in the United States are far more interested in the debate surrounding public displays of the Confederate flag than they are in the Islamic State’s continued march across the Middle East.
Following a racially motivated terrorist attack last week in Charleston, S.C., reporters and commentators have turned their attention to the Confederate flag hoisted outside the Palmetto State’s capitol building.
For the American press, the supposedly influential symbol of hatred and racial oppression represents an issue requiring immediate attention and hours of intense coverage.
In contrast, reports of the Islamic State’s nearly unhindered expansion across vast swaths of the Middle East have earned only a moderate amount of network and cable coverage, according to data compiled by TV Eyes.
The latest Islamic State atrocity involves the violent jihadi regime reportedly drowning caged prisoners in a swimming pool.
“The vile group claimed that 16 men were killed in Nineveh, Iraq, after being accused of spying in a set of horrifying killings,” the UK’s Mirror reported. “In the first round of executions, five terrified men can be seen being lowered into the water while locked in a cage together.”
The alleged drowning execution was videotaped and publicized by Islamic State propagandists.
The video shows alleged Islamic State executioners retrieving the cage from the pool with five limp, motionless bodies piled up at the bottom.
The Daily Mail refrained from showing certain images from the video, reasoning that they were too brutal for their readers.
The Islamic State video also shows the terrorist group allegedly executing spies by locking them in a car and then detonating it with a grenade launcher. Another segment of the reported execution video shows ISIS agents beheading alleged spies with an explosive necklace.
Meanwhile, in the United States, the press has been aflutter with news that Warner Bros. will cease production of all “Dukes of Hazzard” merchandise bearing the image of the Confederate battle flag.
The debate over the flag widened Wednesday as media reported increased support for the scrapping of all merchandise bearing the battle flag of the Confederacy.
On Wednesday, the New York Post published an op-ed suggesting that the 1940 movie “Gone With the Wind” also be tossed into the dustbin of history as a “racist artifact.”
