Gorilla Harambe killing gets six times more media coverage than ISIS' mass beheadings of Christians

Chiqui Guyjoco Wednesday, June 08, 2016

A conservative blog has recently revealed how media coverage of the death of Harambe the gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo on May 28 was featured six times more than the 21 Coptic Christians beheaded by masked militants in Libya last year.

Flowers lay around a bronze statue of a gorilla and her baby outside the Cincinnati Zoo's Gorilla World exhibit, two days after a boy tumbled into its moat and officials were forced to kill Harambe, a 17-year-old Western lowland silverback gorilla, in Cincinnati, Ohio, May 30, 2016. | REUTERS/WILLIAM PHILPOTT

MRC NewsBusters, a website that claims to "provide the immediate exposure of national media bias, unfairness, inaccuracy, and occasional idiocy," has revealed on Thursday, June 2 how broadcast networks ABC, CBS, and NBC proved to "routinely prioritize animal life over human life."

NewsBusters also called it "the very definition of absurdity" that the three media outlets invested 1 hour, 28 minutes, and 17 seconds of their morning and evening news shows on the death of Harambe, the gorilla that was shot dead by zoo officials after dragging for about 10 minutes the toddler who accidentally fell in its enclosure. Harambe's death spurred national outrage on social media as well as petitions and candlelight vigils.

Reporting about Harambe's death, ABC anchor Amy Robach called it a "zoo horror" during Monday's "Good Morning America" while NBC anchor Al Roker mentioned during NBC's "Wednesday's Nightly News" that "we're going to continue talking about this for a while."

CBS correspondent Jamie Yuccas talked about the statement released by PETA that said the animal's enclosure "should have been surrounded by a secondary barrier," while CBS anchor Elaine Quijano described the footage as "terrifying images."

These were in contrast to the 14 minutes and 30 seconds allotted coverage by the same networks when 21 Egyptian Christians were beheaded by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) terrorist group on a Libyan beach last year.

NBC anchor Savannah Guthrie described the "chilling new video" and "brutal murders" during "Today," while anchor Lester Holt commented during "Nightly News" how the execution turned the "war more religiously driven than political."

CBS correspondents for "This Morning" also spent only a sentence each as reference to the Christian beheading.

"The group announced its arrival in Libya with trademark brutality. Two videos showing the beheadings of Christians ... ," said Holly Williams, CBS correspondent.

"Much like Syria and Iraq, the terrorist group has made their presence known in the country, carrying out several gruesome beheadings including this one last February, allegedly showing militants killing Coptic Christians on a beach near Tripoli," reported Jonathan Vigliotti, another CBS correspondent.