January 2015- Baga Massacre, at least 200 people dead

February 2015- Shooting in Pakistan, at least 19 people dead

March 2015- Maiduguri Suicide Bomb, 58 dead

April 2015- Garissa College attack, 148 dead

May 2015- Baghdad car bombs, 19 dead

June 2015- Kuwait Mosque bombing, 27 dead

July 2015- Two bombs explode in Nigeria, 15 dead

August 2015- Nigeria explosions, 47 dead

September 2015- Suicide bombings in Baghdad, 10 dead

October 2015- Turkey bombings, 102 dead

November 2015- Paris attacks, 137 dead

December 2015- Suicide bomber in Afghanistan, 6 dead

January 2016- Turkey bombings, 10 dead

These are only a few of the terror attacks that have happened around the world in the last year. To be honest most of these I had no idea had happened. And terrorism is only a small part of the rest of the tragedy and suffering that happens all over the world every single day.

Out of all the above attacks, why does Paris stand out to us the most?

Why are there only a few select incidents that make our headline news?

And why so easily can we forget about it just as quickly as we heard about it?

It is a sad fact, in which I am just as guilty. Totally consumed by our own environment and ridiculous “first world problems” that it becomes far to easy for us to turn a blind eye to what is really going on in the world.

Unfortunately the media’s first priority is to make money, and “what bleeds, leads”. It is also about its audience feeling connected to the story. We connected to the Paris attacks because it is a westernised society. Most of us have been there, and so easily during those attacks we say to ourselves “it could have been me”. But when the same thing happens in Syria no one says a word. It is a country almost none of us have been to, and a country where their lifestyle and values are so different to that of  our own westernised ones.

What makes innocent lives less important in Syria than it does in Paris to our media?

Unfortunately, it is country that we have become immune to hearing of their devastation.

News outlets are now accessible 24hrs, with the pressure put on news outlets to produce and deliver constant stories. It becomes a revolving door where one story enters and just as quickly it is pushed out by another.

The media is often a question of what came first the chicken or the egg?

Does the control lie in the audience or the media? Do we determine what is newsworthy, or do we just consume what is put in front of us?

Xxx.