Social media websites have blown up over the terrible attack in Woolwich yesterday. There have been generalised, anti-Muslim comments and a strong backlash against those comments coming from the less ignorant side of the population. Oddly, the energy company EDF has received hate on Twitter from those confusing them with the English Defence League, who made trouble in Woolwich last night. Thankfully there have also been many who try to remind people to think more of the victim than of the killers.
This is something that the media makes very hard to do. It can be seen in the name that the BBC has given the attack. It is a small and seemingly insignificant detail, but calling the incident a 'machete attack' rather than an armed attack raises a couple of issues. Firstly it is incorrect, the men carried two knives, a meat cleaver and a gun, no machete.
More importantly it changes the way the attack is perceived. The word 'machete' adds a level of brutality to the attack and makes it far more intimidating. Machetes have a bloody reputation. Over half a million of them were imported into Rwanda from China in 1993 for use in the Rwandan genocide. Machetes were previously known as an agricultural tool, or one used to cut through rainforest undergrowth. That's how they were used by Americans in the Vietnam War; but since the Rwandan genocide they became known as a tool of brutal violence.
The fact that the men wanted to be recorded and caught makes it clear that they wanted attention for what they had done. Exaggeration of the the already brutal attack only gives them what they want. Unfortunately this is what the media does every time there is a public killing. The media's priority is no longer to report the straight facts (if it ever was). Media companies are in such strong competition with one another that they aim to sensationalise and scare in order to get our attention. After massacres like Columbine and Sandy Hook in America the lives of the killers were examined with a fine tooth comb, and the details shown to the public. In Britain we all remember Raoul Moat, but his victims names are forgotten. The victims of public murders are too often reported as a number, they become a statistic.
Take the power away from the killers. Call the incident in Woolwich an 'armed attack' or a 'knife attack'. 'Armed attack' is accurate and less brutal, while 'knife attack', though less accurate as a gun was used, softens the blow even more as it is a term more commonly found in the British media. Remembering the victim does exactly the opposite of what the killers want; it denies them and their statement attention, while supporting the government forces that they aimed to hurt.
