The geography of news value: Iranian schoolgirls whose slaughter is ignored

Communication scholars talk about the objectivity of news and ethical codes in lecture halls. But the theory does not institutionalize within media companies. We are still living in a dark age regarding the selectivity of information. The criteria for "newsworthiness" did not apply following the school attack carried out by the US and Israel in Iran, in which 175 girls lost their lives. In the manufacturing of consent, the distinction between "valuable" and "worthless" victims was laid bare. This is because the global news flow is not equal. The centers of news agencies, their editorial priorities, and their geopolitical positioning determine which death is framed as a "tragedy" and which as a "collateral damage of conflict." In the hierarchical production of news value, some bodies are accepted as worthy of mourning, while others are reduced to statistics.

Is the Language of News a Voluntary Notary of Imperialism?

Along with framing and agenda-setting, the language of news also manifests itself through the words chosen in the presentation of important events. While the actions of allied actors are interpreted within a security context due to geopolitical alignment, the actions of rival actors are framed as norm violations. On top of this, a filter of human visibility is applied. Civilian casualties in geographies accepted as "one of us" are individualized; losses in other geographies are collectivized and anonymized. In digital media, content that is dramatic but stripped of political context is highlighted through algorithmic amplification; complex chains of responsibility are made invisible. Or the other side is made entirely invisible; shadow banning is applied.

In this trajectory, in all mainstream media agencies and television channels—regardless of whether they are Western or Eastern—the death of schoolgirls whose schools were bombed was not considered tragic because it did not serve the established political narrative. The school attack was dismissed in Western mainstream media either as a short ticker or as a side effect of a strategic operation.

Invisible Deaths and Geographic Conscience

On the other hand, if this massacre had taken place in Tel Aviv, Paris, or New York, the frame would have changed. Right now, we would be reading the biographies of the victims on all world channels, seeing their favorite toys, and listening to expert analyses on their extinguished dreams. The language of news would shift from military analysis to human drama, cameras would remain in the schoolyard for a long time, and the tears of families would be conveyed to the global audience. The event would be presented as a universal trauma. However, the victims are from a geography that has been geopolitically declared "the other and the enemy." In this way, the global media hierarchy has made some pains a subject of "universal mourning," while condemning the pain of Iranians to a geographic fate.

The Geopolitical Hypocrisy of News Language

First, let's look at that toxic language used. Like the BBC, Anadolu Agency also presents the event under the headline "US-Israel-Iran Tension." The slaughter of children in a school, the bombing of cities and hospitals is not a "tension"; it is an attack, a massacre, a war crime. However, the agenda-setting mechanism works in such a way that this sterile language, which avoids naming the perpetrator, serves the narrative of imperialism by lightening the weight of the crime.

Framing: Stock Indices Over Coffins

One of the ugliest faces of the issue appears in another context. While the lifeless bodies of children had not yet been pulled from the rubble, while hospitals were still being bombed by Israel, and while civilian casualties were increasing every hour, news bulletins highlighted questions like "What will happen to gold and oil prices? How will the stock market be affected?" Attacks against Iran were stripped of the regime-change efforts and war-massacre framework and imprisoned in a market-oriented risk analysis. The lives of dozens of girls and hundreds of civilians became less newsworthy than the price of a barrel of oil. The meaning of human blood was erased by the red downward arrows on stock market screens. This is also a manifestation of a mentality that commodifies life itself with the complicity of imperialism.

In conclusion, the power of agenda-setting and the language of news in mainstream media acted as a whitewashing apparatus that covered up the crimes of hegemonic powers. Behind this lies the fact that news is not merely information, but produces meaning. And meaning is not independent of power relations. In this context, media systems do not just report events; they draw a global map of empathy. And this map produces an unequal symbolic hierarchy regarding which life is valuable. As this hierarchy is repeated, it becomes normalized. It appears that in the distorted media order, there is a geography of news value. For this reason, pay attention to newspaper headlines and the words in the tickers on television; the axis of foreign policy is not independent of domestic policy. Do we want to be governed by these words and the meaning and ideology behind them?