THE Guardian came under heavy criticism today after failing to label the Christchurch attack as “terror.”
The left-wing newspaper headlined stories on the event as a “mass shooting” or simply “attack.”
Social media users were quick to ask why The Guardian refused to use the word “terror” or “terrorism” in their headlines, and speculated as to whether it was related to the ethnicity of the attacker and the victims.
The newspaper’s own Facebook page was bombarded with readers demanding they call it a “terror attack”.
Underneath a post linking to its live updates article, Charlotte Sendall wrote: “The Guardian don’t you think you should change that headline? There’s a lot of outrage here, and rightly so.”
Jennifer Askin said: “It was an act of terrorism. Call it what it was.”
Kinglsey Jayasekera posted: “Come on Guardian – how is this not a terrorist attack? It’s a premeditated attack by an organised group on a defined non military target to support a stated manifesto.”
It is a full on right wing terrorist attack, on helpless unarmed people in their place of worship, no different to any other terrorist attack
Mark Snell
Jasmine Chan commented: “Even the New Zealand Prime Minister called it a terrorist attack!!! What more do you want??”
Pew Hossain said: “And suddenly we start using the word gunman and not terrorist.”
Mark Snell wrote: “It is a full on right wing terrorist attack, on helpless unarmed people in their place of worship, no different to any other terrorist attack.”
Others simply wrote the words: “TERRORIST ATTACK” in the comments.
There was also outcry on Twitter, where social media users directly tweeted the newspaper ordering them to change the choice of wording.
Jessica Lee said on Twitter: “Dear @guardian, it’s not a mass shooting…it’s a terrorist attack by white supremacists specifically targeting immigrants. Change your headline.”
One user took screengrabs of The Guardian and the BBC’s use of the word “shooting”, stating: “It’s terrorism”, which gathered more than 1,700 likes and 900 retweets.
Why don’t you mention the word ‘terrorism’ or ‘terrorist’, is it to the Muslims only or what?
Karim Ahmed
Another user, Karim Ahmed, tweeted at the newspaper: “Why don’t you mention the word ‘terrorism’ or ‘terrorist’, is it to the Muslims only or what?”
And @agondiken, tweeted: “Pure right wing terrorism and even a liberal newspaper like Guardian doesn’t spell out terrorism.
“The asymmetry in reporting Islamist terrorism and right wing terrorism is incredible.”
User @AShazlan wrote: “So you sure it’s gunman, not terrorist eh, @guardian?
Another tweeted to the paper: “What happened is the right definition of terrorism. IT IS NOT SHOOTING!!! IT IS TERRORISM.”
New Zealand police have arrested a man in his late twenties for the terrorist attack, which has killed at least 49 after targeted assaults on two mosques in the country’s third largest city.
The Guardian changed its headline to describe the attack as terrorism after the outcry.
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