This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, June 1st, 2017. I'm Caleb Brown.

When terrorists kill people in Manchester as they leave a concert, we worry and we feel compassion.

When terrorists kill people in Afghanistan, we tend to worry less and consider those lives

less seriously, if at all.

To the extent that the U.S. contributes to the lack of stability in countries like Afghanistan, it's reasonable for us to step back and view American war-making for what it is.

Chris Preble, Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute offers his thoughts.

As of this recording, it was not quite a week ago when we heard about an explosion, terrorism, at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, UK.

And then earlier this week we hear about a bombing in Afghanistan, also terrorism, that killed

as far as we know right now about 90 people and the way that those two events have been discussed

is just is just very different and that strikes me as a problem.

Right.

So I think there are at least two somewhat exclusive or at least distinct explanations for why the news media reports terrorism attacks

and terrorism deaths differently depending upon who the victims are. The first has to do with the news

media's sort of biological inclination to cover things that are new or different or surprising.

You know, man bites dog, right?

That's the cliche.

And so the tragic fact is that terrorist attacks inside of Afghanistan or for that matter

inside of war-torn countries, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, others, countries that have experienced

very long periods of lawlessness, terrorist attacks inside of those countries are perhaps

not quite routine, but certainly not uncommon.

And so reporting on a bombing, even when it claims a considerable number of lives as the most recent

one did, is less likely to be seen as news.

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