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What Do To With Brietbart Story On Christian Massacre (1 Viewer)

Joe Bryant

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You may have seen this too but I get friends posting this on Facebook and asking why it goes unnoticed.

And for sure, it's Breitbart. That's understood.

The death toll of last weekend’s massacre of Nigerian Christians by militant Muslim Fulani herdsmen has risen to at least 200, according to a report released Friday by Open Doors, an organization that monitors Christian persecution.

As Breitbart News reported earlier this week, heavily armed gunmen recognized as Fulani herdsmen opened fire on Christians in a number of villages in Plateau State of central Nigeria last weekend, killing scores and injuring hundreds more, as well as burning some 50 homes to the ground. Most of the victims were returning home from the funeral of the father of a local Christian minister.

Despite the evidently religious nature of the slaughter, mainstream media chose to downplay the militant Islamism behind the attacks, preferring to attribute the violence to “ethnic tensions,” a “battle for land and resources,” or even “climate change.”

Meanwhile, two local Catholic bishops have called out the violence for what it was: a “clear agenda for Islamizing the Nigerian Middle Belt” by using Fulani shepherds.

One of the bishops, Matthew Ishaya Audu of Lafia, said the attacks are not random or economically motivated, but purposefully target Christians.

“They want to strike Christians,” Bishop Audu said, “and the government does nothing to stop them, because President Buhari is also of the Fulani ethnic group.”

Other observers concur that the attacks form part of a larger plan to eliminate Christians from the area.

“The killings are becoming no longer herder and farmer clashes” but a “deliberate attempt to conquer and occupy the land of the people’s ancestral heritage,” said Dr. Soja Bewarang, while denouncing an attack on a Bible school that trained Christian missionaries in Gana-Ropp village.

Reverend Gideon Para-Mallam, of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students in Jos, said that the violence is part of a pattern, an emerging agenda, which represents “another Boko Haram in disguise.”

The intensity of the attacks in central Nigeria is indicative, Para-Mallam said, “because Plateau state is the epicenter of Christianity.”

The recent “killing spree” lasted four days, Thursday through Sunday evening and into Monday, Open Doors revealed in its report Friday.

During this time, a dozen villages in Nigeria’s Plateau state were reportedly wiped out and on Sunday, 75 of the victims were buried in a mass grave.

Among the victims of the massacre included a local pastor, Rev. Musa Choji, along with his wife and son.

In a single village, Nghar, herdsmen killed over 100 Christians and burned down all the houses, as well as two churches, according to an unnamed pastor of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA).

Assailants killed 14 members of the pastor’s wife’s family, including her mother and sister. In that household, 27 people lost their lives, all of them burned to death, Open Doors said.

On the day of the attack in Nghar, only two soldiers and one policeman were in the village, but they reportedly fled as soon as the herdsmen launched their attack.

Although the anti-Christian violence came to a head over the weekend, in reality it has been going on for some time, according to Pastor Steve Kwol, chairman of the Pentecostal Federation of Nigeria for Plateau North.

Even since the weekend, with a military presence and dusk-to-dawn curfew, the assaults are ongoing, he said. Two more villages—Kwi and Dorowa—were badly damaged on Monday.

Most of the buildings were burned down in Dorowa, including four church buildings, and the adjoining buildings, including pastors’ houses, were also destroyed by fire.

Herdsmen set fire to a number of buildings, including churches, in Kwi as well. The precise number of casualties is unknown, but many villagers were displaced and are now living in camps in neighboring villages.

“We’ve been living peacefully with [Fulani herdsmen]” Pastor Kwol said. “Since this crisis started in Plateau in recent months, our people have not killed one Fulani man. Instead, they have been killing our people one by one. We just buried them and carried on.” he said.

“As a result of the ongoing insecurity, there are places where people can no longer go to farm,” he said, “because when they go, the Fulani will come and take their cows, or attack them.”

“Just two weeks ago, they shot my wife’s young brother. But he survived. He was discharged on Wednesday and had returned home on Thursday, only to get killed in the last attack, on Saturday,” he said.


What do you think the appropriate response is?

Telling them "It's Breitbart and everything the publish is garbage" doesn't work. 

Do you think these stories are true? If so why aren't they published?

My friends say it's because they're poor Africans and people care way more about New Zealand people than they do poor African people. I don't know that's true. 

But if true, it's pretty crazy it's not getting attention. What do you think?

 
You may have seen this too but I get friends posting this on Facebook and asking why it goes unnoticed.

And for sure, it's Breitbart. That's understood.
It looks like that story is from June 2018.  But I have seen this more recent one being thrown around social media https://www.breitbart.com/africa/2019/03/16/nigerian-muslim-militants-kill-120-christians-three-weeks/  as in "sure what happened in NZ is bad but Christians are being killed too!"

Now if you take a quick look at the Brietbart article the only source is The Christian Post which is very biased and not very reliable.  

 
Thanks.

Does it not seem wrong that all these people are being killed and there is very little coverage?
I think the news does a pretty good job of keeping us terrified every day with what they cover already

The problem with africa is that it is a third world continent.  There are people dying there absolutely tragically every day.  

The real question to me is not why are they covering this but why aren't they covering the millions of starving people all over the world - including africa

https://africacheck.org/reports/do-12-africans-die-of-hunger-every-minute-the-claim-is-exaggerated/

5 million kids per year...

 
The problem with africa is that it is a third world continent.  There are people dying there absolutely tragically every day.  

The real question to me is not why are they covering this but why aren't they covering the millions of starving people all over the world - including africa

https://africacheck.org/reports/do-12-africans-die-of-hunger-every-minute-the-claim-is-exaggerated/

5 million kids per year...




2
Agreed. That's awful too. 

I do think it feels like the massacre stuff is being under-reported. Seems like it shouldn't matter that it's Africa. 

 
You may have seen this too but I get friends posting this on Facebook and asking why it goes unnoticed.

And for sure, it's Breitbart. That's understood.

What do you think the appropriate response is?

Telling them "It's Breitbart and everything the publish is garbage" doesn't work. 

Do you think these stories are true? If so why aren't they published?

My friends say it's because they're poor Africans and people care way more about New Zealand people than they do poor African people. I don't know that's true. 

But if true, it's pretty crazy it's not getting attention. What do you think?
If it is true and there is no reason to believe it is not it is horrible as the NZ killings.  Why the media shy's away from stories like this that I do not know. The whole dynamics of what happened in NZ to what happens in Nigeria are totally different to outsiders. Most people just think that is life in Nigeria.

Muslim terrorists attack targets killing innocent people, disgruntled man in NZ then wants revenge and attacks a Muslim target killing innocent people.  Now that gets people attention.

 
"The conflicts have been going on intermittently for nearly three years and occasionally surface in international media. But attributing the attacks solely to religious persecution “is a misunderstanding of the actual problem,” says Cheta Nwanze, head researcher at SBM Intel, a Lagos-based intelligence firm that has analyzed conflict in northern Nigeria over the past three years.

“The pastoral conflict is, in reality, primarily a resource conflict [over land] but because it has gone on for so long it is beginning to metastasize and is taking the coloration of a religious and ethnic conflict where it originally was not,” 
My first reaction was, "I bet there's more to this story and it's being simplified to provoke a particular response."  Which, yes.

I'd ignore them, personally.  They're following the story to prove something they already believe and no amount of anything will convince them of anything except that the story is being under reported because the liberal media hates Christians.

 
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"The conflicts have been going on intermittently for nearly three years and occasionally surface in international media. But attributing the attacks solely to religious persecution “is a misunderstanding of the actual problem,” says Cheta Nwanze, head researcher at SBM Intel, a Lagos-based intelligence firm that has analyzed conflict in northern Nigeria over the past three years.

“The pastoral conflict is, in reality, primarily a resource conflict [over land] but because it has gone on for so long it is beginning to metastasize and is taking the coloration of a religious and ethnic conflict where it originally was not,” 
My first reaction was, "I bet there's more to this story and it's being simplified to provoke a particular response."  Which, yes.

I'd ignore them, personally.  They're following the story to prove something they already believe and no amount of anything will convince them that the story isn't being under reported because the liberal media hates Christians.
I wonder if those people will still complain about the story being under-reported when the headline is "CHRISTIAN TERRORISTS MASSACRE 130 MUSLIMS".

 
I wonder if those people will still complain about the story being under-reported when the headline is "CHRISTIAN TERRORISTS MASSACRE 130 MUSLIMS".
They won't.  They also won't care that 100s of people die each day in Yemen due to religious conflict and there's no story on each individual atrocity.  Or that 500,000 people died in Syria, 200 people at a time.  Or that 10,000 Rohingya Muslims were killed by Buddhists -- driving 1,000,000 Rohingya out of the country and into refugee camps.  Or that Sihks and Hindus seem like they might be gearing up for another war in Kashmir. 

And on and on.

 
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Agreed. That's awful too. 

I do think it feels like the massacre stuff is being under-reported. Seems like it shouldn't matter that it's Africa. 
It shouldn't but it does.  In 1994, somewhere between 500,000 to 1,000,000 Rwandans were systematically executed and it took weeks for the Western media to take notice.

 
"There's no reason to believe that the story isn't true"

Really?

No reason? Not one single reason?

"Because Brietbart is known as a purveyor of fake news" isn't a good enough reason?

 
The ongoing herder-farmer conflict in Nigeria has claimed thousands of lives in recent years, particularly during an escalation of the violence in 2019 and especially in Kaduna State, where dozens of mostly Christian Adara were reported to have been killed in February and March by mostly Muslim Fulani militants.

Local news reports, as recorded in the Council on Foreign Relations’ Nigeria Security Tracker, largely corroborate the incidents and deaths described by Breitbart and the Christian Solidarity Worldwide non-profit group.

However, reports by Breitbart and the Christian Post website failed readers by presenting a woefully narrow viewpoint on the conflict, emphasizing only the religious affiliations of the participants while neglecting to mention what impartial experts have highlighted as being the primary driving force behind it: a dispute over natural resources and land usage.

Furthermore, while Breitbart’s article provided details of several reported attacks by Fulani herders on farmers in Kaduna State in February and March 2019, it did not mention the attack on the mainly Muslim Fula ethnic group, which was the single largest reported atrocity during the time period in question.

Notwithstanding the fact that some local Christian leaders disputed the death toll presented in that case, Breitbart’s failure to even mention the attack on the Fula group constitutes a glaring omission in any article purporting to be a reliable or impartial examination of what is, to begin with, a volatile and complicated conflict.

 
Question for @Joe Bryant

Do you think it is difficult to determine if a story is from a reliable source? Do you think it is difficult to determine which news sources are trustworthy? Are all news sources of roughly the same value when it comes to being “reliable” & “trustworthy”?

 
Question for @Joe Bryant

Do you think it is difficult to determine if a story is from a reliable source? Do you think it is difficult to determine which news sources are trustworthy? Are all news sources of roughly the same value when it comes to being “reliable” & “trustworthy”?
Absolutely I don't think all sources are the same value when it comes to reliability and newsworthiness. The first thing I said was this was from Breitbart. And finished with the idea of telling people "Breitbart is just garbage" isn't a satisfactory response. 

What is your point? 

 
And I was responding to your assertion “...there's no reason to believe that the story isn't true...”
That is from personal talks.  My wife works with and we have had long conversations with people from Nigeria..from hearing some of their stories I really have no reason to believe that most of it is not true.  My main assertion is that most people really would not care anyway..that the story would not garner enough attention because the masses would just think it is Africans killing Africans...not Muslims killing Christians.

 
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there is nothing to do with is

if CNN, USAToday, WP, NYTimes, FOX etc do not run it ........... nobody cares. That is was Christians means nobody really cares. 

agenda Joe Bryant, you gotta follow the agenda and reporting on Christians being massacred accomplishes nothing really

 
there is nothing to do with is

if CNN, USAToday, WP, NYTimes, FOX etc do not run it ........... nobody cares. That is was Christians means nobody really cares. 

agenda Joe Bryant, you gotta follow the agenda and reporting on Christians being massacred accomplishes nothing really
There isn't a single complete sentence in this post.

But I totally agree that you gotta follow the agenda Joe Bryant.

 
In the first half of 2018, more than 1,300 Nigerians have died in violence involving herders and farmers. What were once spontaneous attacks have become premeditated scorched-earth campaigns in which marauders often take villages by surprise at night. Now claiming about six times more civilian lives than the Boko Haram insurgency, the conflict poses a grave threat to the country’s stability and unity, and it could affect the 2019 general elections. The federal government has taken welcome but insufficient steps to halt the killings. Its immediate priorities should be to deploy more security units to vulnerable areas; prosecute perpetrators of violence; disarm ethnic militias and local vigilantes; and begin executing long-term plans for comprehensive livestock sector reform. The Benue state government should freeze enforcement of its law banning open grazing, review that law’s provisions and encourage a phased transition to ranching.

The conflict is fundamentally a land-use contest between farmers and herders across the country’s Middle Belt. It has taken on dangerous religious and ethnic dimensions, however, because most of the herders are from the traditionally nomadic and Muslim Fulani who make up about 90 per cent of Nigeria’s pastoralists, while most of the farmers are Christians of various ethnicities. Since the violence escalated in January 2018, an estimated 300,000 people have fled their homes. Large-scale displacement and insecurity in parts of Adamawa, Benue, Nasarawa, Plateau and Taraba states hinder farming as well as herding and drive up food prices. The violence exacts a heavy burden on the military, police and other security services, distracting them from other important missions, such as countering the Boko Haram insurgency.

The conflict’s roots lie in climate-induced degradation of pasture and increasing violence in the country’s far north, which have forced herders south; the expansion of farms and settlements that swallow up grazing reserves and block traditional migration routes; and the damage to farmers’ crops wrought by herders’ indiscriminate grazing. But three immediate factors explain the 2018 escalation. First is the rapid growth of ethnic militias, such as those of the Bachama and Fulani in Adamawa state, bearing illegally acquired weapons. Second is the failure of the federal government to prosecute past perpetrators or heed early warnings of impending attacks. Third is the introduction in November 2017 of anti-grazing laws vehemently opposed by herders in Benue and Taraba states, and the resultant exodus of herders and cattle, largely into neighbouring Nasarawa and, to a lesser degree, Adamawa, sparking clashes with farmers in those states.
ICG.

- Shockingly, we may learn something.

- But to answer the question, no this is not the counterpart or any kind of comp to what happened in Christchurch. Again the comp is the Lincoln County range wars.

 
Thanks.

Does it not seem wrong that all these people are being killed and there is very little coverage?
Nope.

Serious question: Who should cover it?  We (US news organizations) can barely keep up with national stories, let alone international stories.  

I don't think the New Zealand attack would have gotten as much coverage if not for the live-stream of the attack, and then the tie-in to Trump specifically.

 
it goes unnoticed
Ask your FB friends have seen this - the devastation of the Mozambique typhoon.

More here.
And:

Assaad Razzouk‏Verified account @AssaadRazzouk

Climate Chaos: "Worst Case Scenario" cyclone slams Mozambique, Malawi - Death toll exceeds 100, rising - 80,000 displaced - Landfall early today with winds of 175 km/h per hour and gusts of 213 km/h - 1,583 km of roads damaged, 11 bridges destroyed
- I think right now reports are the death toll could exceed 1,000.

- The basic answer is that US media doesn't report on most African events or disasters, that's really just the sum of it.

 
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Ask your FB friends have seen this - the devastation of the Mozambique typhoon.

More here.
And:

- I think right now reports are the death toll could exceed 1,000.

- The basic answer is that US media doesn't report on most African events or dsasters, that's really just the sum of it.
There has been so much back and forth major killings in Africa and news there has not typically been strong with verifiable facts.

Tough to report very well on it.

 
Why doesn't Breitbart do what the NYT or Reuters would do... investigate for months with 4 different reporters and cross it over with other non-affiliated journalists and do some real journalistic work. Use their resources to actually have a real source-based idea of what they are saying before they say anything.

Unlike when BREITBART stood in front of congress and under OATH lied about what they had done with James O'Keefe to promote their right-wing propaganda.

 
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Joe,

When your friends post this stuff on Facebook, what do you do? Do you point out that Breitbart has a history of publishing misleading stories, and do you then offer links to more reputable versions of the story?

Or do you stay silent?

 
Nope.

Serious question: Who should cover it?  We (US news organizations) can barely keep up with national stories, let alone international stories.  

I don't think the New Zealand attack would have gotten as much coverage if not for the live-stream of the attack, and then the tie-in to Trump specifically.
this is true

an event that happened and can be used for political agenda by liberal media and that's why its saturated US media and news

you can't really use Christians being killed or historic flooding/damage in Nebraska for any political points ..... and so, you don't see it on the news

 
Joe,

When your friends post this stuff on Facebook, what do you do? Do you point out that Breitbart has a history of publishing misleading stories, and do you then offer links to more reputable versions of the story?

Or do you stay silent?
On this one from yesterday, I haven't said anything. 

I generally don't comment much on Facebook. Not sure why. 

 
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you can't really use Christians being killed or historic flooding/damage in Nebraska for any political points ..... and so, you don't see it on the news
:shrug:

The irony is that this particular conflict is not religious in nature.   The only reason it made breitbart, and this forum, was by adding "Christian" to the headline.  If this was Nigerian herders kill Nigerian farmers - Breitbart does not carry it, and Joe does not post about it.

It really only exists as a "story" for political points...

And, I have read lots of coverage about the flooding in Nebraska.

 
My friends say it's because they're poor Africans and people care way more about New Zealand people than they do poor African people. I don't know that's true. 
It sounds to me like this particular story may have been reported by Breitbart out of context for their usual spurious political reasons. 

But as a general rule I think your friends are right. And it has nothing to do with Christian vs Muslim, it has everything to do with the news media reports the news to a mostly white audience, and we care more when white people die. That’s just the way it’s always been.

A pretty white girl can go missing on Aruba and the news media will literally devote hundreds of hours to the story, even though there is no story- do you think if a black or Latino girl goes missing in Aruba it gets anywhere near the attention? Of course not. 

White sells. 

 
There is simply no way to fully cover the firehose of deaths we humans unleash on each other every minute of every day. It's impossible. 43000 people will be killed this month and that's killings the WHO specifies as murders not conflict deaths. That's 1 a minute every minute of every average day. Every one a tragedy. Every one deserving of notice. But no way to actually accomplish that.

There are currently 45 active conflicts in the world ranging from major wars to minor shooting wars. 

Then add in there will be another mass shooting here at home somewhere this week if it's an average week.

It's a tsunami of death and destruction. 

Still rooting for the asteroid.

 
White supremacist/eco-fascist/communist kills Muslims in New Zealand: tragedy

"Radical" Muslims kill Christians in Africa: white supremacists conspiracy

The fact that some of you fall for this propaganda is disturbing.

Kudos to Joe for attempting to have a discussion about this, sadly and predictably it went straight to the radical talking points
Congratulations, Joe.

 
White supremacist/eco-fascist/communist kills Muslims in New Zealand: tragedy

"Radical" Muslims kill Christians in Africa: white supremacists conspiracy

The fact that some of you fall for this propaganda is disturbing.

Kudos to Joe for attempting to have a discussion about this, sadly and predictably it went straight to the radical talking points
Are you saying my talking points are radical in like a 1980s skater kinda way?

 
White supremacist/eco-fascist/communist kills Muslims in New Zealand: tragedy

"Radical" Muslims kill Christians in Africa: white supremacists conspiracy

The fact that some of you fall for this propaganda is disturbing.

Kudos to Joe for attempting to have a discussion about this, sadly and predictably it went straight to the radical talking points
Except as pointed out Breitbart left out some details as the story has nuance. They either did this from incompetence or on purpose which makes it propaganda to further their own agenda. Either way their story failed to enlighten it only served to enflame. So they are either ignorant or they have a racist agenda. How about you pick which one it is? Neither seems good for an alleged news outfit though.

 
Wow. Even after you spell out F-A-K-E N-E-W-S in giant capital letters, they still fall for it. They want to believe SOOOOOOO badly.

 

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