Already lost by now in the sea of constant news re: President Trump is his assertion this week that the mainstream media has forgotten and/or underreported terrorism in the past three years, ostensibly covering for the man who used to have his job.
In the 40-hour-a-day news cycle in which we now reside there is hardly a swatted fly that goes unreported or underreported. There is, however, one event, from April 2009, that is, in fact, the underreported terrorist act of the past generation and I take this opportunity to remedy that.
April 3, 2009, 13 people were killed at the American Civic Association, in Binghamton, New York. The shooter then turned the gun on himself, bringing the death total to 14, the deadliest mass murder in New York State since September 11, and still one of the worst such occurrences this century.
Trouble is, you never hear about it.
My usual joke is that Binghamton can’t even get a mass shooting right, but this isn’t about Binghamton, it’s about reporting, and underreporting, as it were.
It’s the great forgotten mass murder of our time.
I think the best explanation for this is not one of politics or journalistic misfeasance. Simply put, nearly all the victims at the ACA were not white. They were not black or Hispanic either, and I don’t think the media (and, sadly, many people in Binghamton), have given them due sorrow.
Underreported?
Well, news teams were there in droves that awful day.
Not much since then, though.
Hard to believe it’s been nearly eight years.
And way too many shootings since.
