Why Is U.S. Media Ignoring The NAACP Bombing?

On Tuesday morning, a bomb went off at a Colorado Springs NAACP office, leading to no arrests and reports of the suspect "a balding white male, about 40 years old," on the loose. Hours later, gunmen stormed the offices of Charlie Hebdo , a satirical magazine in Paris, killing 12. Reports surrounding the attack in France swarmed media Wednesday morning, with live coverage describing the international manhunt for the shooters. Of course, that story was top news worldwide — but, strangely, U.S. media went silent regarding the NAACP bombing, seeming to ignore the domestic manhunt happening in our own country, and those tweeting with the #NAACPBombing hashtag definitely noticed.

CNN's homepage blasted the headline "TERROR IN PARIS," with just a small headline dedicated to the NAACP bombings. Fox News admonished the "Islamic executioners" responsible for the Charlie Hebdo attack, despite the fact that information is still incoming regarding the identity of the gunmen. (The NAACP bombing, however, dedicates a tiny headline at the bottom of Fox News' web page.) NBC News dedicates a short headline to the news (admittedly, higher up than CNN and Fox News), but ABC News and CBS News is not featuring the bombing news anywhere on their homepages. And even New York Times, the paper that boasts to print "all the news that's fit to print," didn't think the NAACP story fit enough to appear its own homepage.

(Fox News' current homepage, above the fold.)

(Fox News' homepage, far below the fold. Finding the story is like Where's Waldo?.)

Of course, no one doubts that the Paris attack is top news — 12 people, including four of the top cartoonists in the nation, were killed, and we still don't know who is responsible. But the U.S. media's almost outright dismissal of the NAACP attack, which kicked off a search for a still-at-large suspect who intended to do harm to a domestic black organization, has ignited the ire of many writing on the #NAACPBombing hashtag. It has also returned the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag to Twitter prominence weeks after the Michael Brown and Eric Garner killings inspired it.

Indeed, it seems the only place to keep truly updated on the NAACP bombing news is Twitter itself.

Of course, the day — and the search for the NAACP suspect — is still young. We could very well see media turn its attention towards the story once police lock in on an individual. But why must it wait that long? Please, media, let's not leave it up to celebrities to bring attention to such a terrifying crime.

Images: NAACP; Fox News