"If it's not in The New York Times, it probably didn't happen," used to be an acknowledgment of the publication's power and reach.
It's not true anymore, if it ever was. But the Times's coverage of foreign crises was among the best in the world. Suppose you wanted answers to the classic journalist's questions of who, what, when, where, and why; the New York Times supplied the answers with more than 30 foreign bureaus and dozens of correspondents stationed around the world. Their in-depth reporting on wars, refugees, government repression, and cultural issues was unrivaled.
That was then, this is now.
There's a "Silent Slaughter" happening in Nigeria, according to Daily Wire. Don't bother Googling for it. You won't find it. But it's real. And thousands of Christians are being murdered, with very little being done by the Nigerian government.
On Friday, June 13, 500 Christian refugees gathered in the provincial town of Yelwata, in central Nigeria. The men, women, and children were fleeing the "killer squads" of Muslim extremists who were roaming free, slaughtering Christians with impunity.
Police in Yelwata were called away on some pretext, and that's when the militant Fulani terrorists entered the town.
It was gruesome. The Fulani terrorists attacked townspeople with machetes, hacking and “cutting them like they were cutting a cow or an animal to be eaten,” Steven Kefas, a Nigerian journalist, told The Free Press (TFP). Kefas visited Yelwata in the massacre's aftermath and reported that after hacking off limbs and gashing their victims, the terrorists doused them with gasoline and set them on fire.
“It’s psychological,” said Kefas. “They could just shoot people and move on. So I feel going the extra length of butchering these people is to send a message to the survivors that: ‘Hey, look what we’ve done to these people. That’s what we’re going to do to you if you don’t vacate your land.’ ”
The Fulani don't need any encouragement to kill their enemies. But the Boko Haram terrorist group sometimes hires the herders to carry out these massacres. The goal for the terrorists is to make the Nigerian government look weak and incompetent.
They don't need much help on that score.
The death toll from that one attack has risen to 218 and is expected to rise as the wounded continue to succumb to their wounds. "Since 2009, Islamists in northern Nigeria have destroyed over 18,000 churches and, throughout the country, have murdered over 50,000 Christians. A further 5 million Christians have been displaced within the country, according to a 2023 Vatican report," says Madeleine Kearns of TFP.
While the Christian-Muslim divide is fueling the conflict, the ethnic Fulani (herders) and Christians (farmers) are at war for land and water. The Fulani herders are a nomadic people, and as they roam across Nigeria, they're not very careful about their cattle trampling the Christian farmers' crops.
Northern Nigeria, like much of Africa, is gripped by severe socio-economic challenges that fuel instability and hardship. Most people in Northern Nigeria live on the equivalent of a little more than $1 USD per day. Currently, a 10kg (22-pound) bag of rice costs about $35 USD. People barely earn enough to feed themselves. The annual inflation rate is around 24%, which drives the cost of food higher and higher. UNICEF has placed Nigeria on its crisis list, stating that over 25 million people are at high risk of food insecurity. These conditions have created an environment that keeps people in a perpetual state of survival.
This is the kind of "Sunday Supplement" story the New York Times used to publish. Ethnic and religious conflict, an incompetent government caught between two factions, and unable to stem the violence.
But The Times is leaving the reporting of the story of Christian persecution to other outlets.
As Western governments have turned away from the issue, so too has the mainstream media. “If 10 people are killed in Ukraine, it becomes a major headline across all the newspapers across the world. If 100 people are killed in Gaza, it becomes the major news item on CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera and co.,” said Kefas. By contrast, several of the Islamist attacks in Nigeria have never been reported by the mainstream media in the West; it has been left to the small Christian press to cover the story.
“Over 200 people were slaughtered. You can’t find it on CNN. CNN will not make it a topic. Al Jazeera will not make it a topic where you have guests coming to analyze this situation,” said Kefas.
His assessment was blunt: “The international community has failed these people.”
To my mind, this story perfectly illustrates what's wrong with corporate media. Reporting on Christians being slaughtered can't happen because most of their worldwide audience isn't Christian. They're not writing for Americans. They're writing for an international audience.
The Vatican has issued strong statements about the violence in Nigeria, but where the hell is the pope? He can't make a big stink about the slaughter, because it would be seen as "playing favorites." The Vatican doesn't make a huge deal of Gazans being "slaughtered," so how can the pope highlight the killing of a few Christians?
Ecumenicalism!
Inflation and food shortages exacerbate the conflict between Fulani Muslim herders and Christian farmers because, to them, every day is a desperate fight for survival. Tensions over grazing land — the source of sustenance for both the herders and farmers — run at a fever pitch. These socio-economic conditions are also the reason why so many young men are drawn to radical Islamic groups like Boko Haram and ISWAP. Not only do these groups provide a support system, but they also pay well for people willing to follow their orders and commit violent acts. I’ve heard reports of Boko Haram paying their fighters $100 USD for the successful execution of a single act of terrorism. That’s a small fortune in this part of the world.
"The desperate conditions of Northern Nigeria are the fuel that keeps the fire of persecution burning," reports the Daily Wire.
Perhaps the story is too complicated for a two-minute TV report. Maybe editors of daily newspapers don't think their readers want to know about third-world farmers and herders killing each other. That a terrorist group is paying one faction to kill another is not really news, is it?
Those are excuses. The reason that this isn't big news is that there's an anti-Christian bias in American journalism. And the deaths of hundreds or thousands of human beings isn't as important as deaths in Gaza or Ukraine.
