NPR

When Is It 'Terrorism'? How The Media Covers Attacks By Muslim Perpetrators

In the last five years, just 12% of terrorist attacks in the U.S. were carried out by Muslims. More than 50% were perpetrated by far right extremists. So why the media focus on "Islamic terrorism"?
Sometimes it can feel like there is a terrorist attack on the news every other week. But how much attention an attack receives has a lot to do with one factor: the religion of the perpetrator.

President Trump has often accused the news media of not covering terrorist attacks adequately. In a speech in February he said, "Radical Islamic terrorists are determined to strike our homeland as they did on 9/11, as they did from Boston to Orlando to San Bernardino [...] It's gotten to a point where it's

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