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Yes, Trump, these German attacks were covered - quite extensively

Emma Anderson
Emma Anderson - [email protected]
Yes, Trump, these German attacks were covered - quite extensively
The scene from the Berlin truck attack, also mentioned on Trump's list. Photo: DPA

The White House this week produced a list to support US President Donald Trump’s claims that the media have been under-reporting terrorism. But here's how German and international media really covered those attacks.

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Trump on Monday criticized media coverage of terrorism, claiming “it’s not even being reported… the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it”. 

Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer later walked back his boss’s claims a bit by saying that the Trump administration thinks certain attacks haven’t “gotten the coverage [they] deserved”. In an attempt to back this claim, the White House released a list of 78 supposed terrorist attacks that Trump felt didn’t get proper coverage. 

But the list includes a number of terror attacks that were widely covered internationally, such as the November 2015 Paris attacks, in which 130 people were killed, as well as the 2015 shootings in San Bernardino, California, that killed 14 people.

The attacks mentioned in Germany include the recent Berlin truck attack on December 19th in which 12 people were killed. The attack continues to be covered widely in the German media, which debates new, increased security methods and more is revealed about how the main suspect, Anis Amri, managed to slip through cracks in German intelligence.

Overseas, it made front page coverage worldwide on December 20th, and the memorial service attended by Chancellor Angela Merkel was the main image on the front page of The New York Times on December 21st. As recently as the end of of January the LA Times was still reporting on the attack's impact on German politics.

The list also mentions an attack in Hanover that has been in the news recently. In February last year, a teen girl motivated by Isis stabbed a police officer in the neck, though not fatally. She was sentenced at the end of last month to six years in jail. The case made the pages of the Telegraph, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, among others.

Two other attacks in Germany linked to Isis on Trump’s list also did not result in deaths other than of the perpetrators. In Würzburg, an asylum seeker attacked and injured five people on a train with an axe last July. He was shot dead by police. Within a week, an asylum seeker in Ansbach blew himself up outside a bar, injuring 15 others.

Both of these attacks were widely covered and discussed in German politics, especially because they happened within a week of one another, and also of a mass shooting in Munich that was not found to be linked to terror.

Internationally, both the Würzburg and Ansbach attacks attracted large media attention, from the BBC to the Los Angeles Times. The Ansbach explosion was a top story for CNN on their homepage, as was the Würzburg attack.

Screenshot from CNN homepage after Würzburg attack.

Screenshot of CNN homepage after Ansbach attack.

Before the two attacks last summer, a Sikh house of prayer was hit by a homemade bomb attack in Essen last April, injuring three. The suspected perpetrators are three teen boys, accused of being inspired by jihadist extremism.

Again, this attack was widely covered by international media.

The one German attack mentioned in the list that seems to have received the least attention was an attack in Hamburg last October that still has not been solved. No suspect has yet been found, though Isis did claim responsibility. In this assault, a 16-year-old boy was fatally stabbed by a man described as being “of southern appearance”. In Germany, the murder was covered by every major newsroom: Bild, Die Welt, Spiegel, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and more.

Perhaps due to the lack of clarity about the crime's motives, it was not as widely covered abroad, but a story about it by the Associated Press was published throughout local and national media in the US. In the UK, the Daily Mail and the Telegraph also covered the case.

Of course, it is not known to what extent Trump hoped international news groups would cover these attacks. Some incidents mentioned on his list from Europe do not even appear to have solid links to terrorism, such as a drug bust gone wrong in Denmark and an arson attack in Sweden

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