We call them ‘freedom fighters’ in the Middle East and ‘terrorists’ here

Is it correct to refer to “the Western mass media” as an entity?

That is — to suggest that there is a controlling interest in the reporting of major news items by all branches of the mass media throughout the Americas, Europe, Australia and New Zealand?

Most certainly, in this writer’s opinion, it is correct to do so.

There is a common thread that runs through all of the major news items, as reported by various branches and segments of both the print and electronic media throughout the Western world, and that thread could best be described as “a Western slant”.

An example would be the reporting of the killings on the streets of the Middle East and the choice of language to describe the actions taken by the various governments to put down the killings and to stop the anarchy.

Since the outbreak of the killings in Tunisia, in Jan 2011, and then, later, in Egypt and then in Algiers and then on to Libya and now on to Syria — the vast majority of the reporting by the Western media has used the same language to describe the people in the streets and their governments.

So, the former are referred to “combatants”, “rebels”, “dissidents”, “anti-regime protesters” “freedom fighters”, and other such acceptable terms; while the latter were referred to as “regimes” or “dictatorships” or “governments that do not meet western standards of democracy.”

Classic example — every news outlet, including our own print and electronic media, refers to the anarchists in Syria as “The Rebel Free Syrian Army”.

Please call most of the killers on the streets what they truly are — extreme terrorists.

I do not recall the Western mass media ever referring to the IRA, at the height of their killings, by such noble terms.

They were called terrorists, which they were, as are those suicide bombers across Syria.

Vincent J Lavery

Dalkey

County Dublin