Politics
How News Media is Describing the Incident at the U.S. Capitol
How Media Outlets Describe the Incident at the U.S. Capitol
Was it a riot? An insurrection? Or was it simply a protest?
The January 6, 2021 incident at the U.S. Capitol was widely covered in news media—however, the type of language used to describe it varied greatly from publication to publication.
Popular news media has a major impact on how society at large perceives major events. To learn more about the language used in recent coverage, we analyzed over 180 articles from Alexa’s top-ranked news websites in the United States. Here’s what we found.
Most Common Descriptions: The Event
From riot to rampage, descriptions used by news media of the incident at the U.S. Capitol were all over the map:
↓ Event descriptor | Yahoo | CNN | NYT | Fox | WaPo | Breitbart | Epoch Times | BBC | BI |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Riot | 6 | 9 | 9 | 10 | 9 | 9 | 3 | 10 | 7 |
Storm | 9 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 7 | 10 | 10 | 8 |
Breach | 4 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 13 | 3 | 1 |
Siege | 6 | 1 | 7 | 7 | 1 | 5 | 4 | ||
Attack | 3 | 1 | 6 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | |
Insurrection | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 7 | |||
Assault | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||
Rampage | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||
Invasion | 1 | 3 | 1 | ||||||
Unrest | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
The most commonly used description was riot, followed by storm. On the other end of the spectrum were the less-frequent terms such as insurrection, assault, rampage, and invasion.
Interestingly, Yahoo News, Business Insider, and BBC used siege, attack, and insurrection more often as compared to Breitbart, Epoch Times, and Fox News. The Epoch Times also described the event as a breach more times than any other outlet.
Most Common Descriptions: The Participants
The participants in the incident were identified in various ways, reflecting the variation seen in describing the incident.
↓ Participants | Yahoo | CNN | NYT | Fox | WaPo | Breitbart | Epoch Times | BBC | BI |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mob | 12 | 8 | 12 | 6 | 8 | 8 | 11 | ||
Rioters | 6 | 9 | 9 | 7 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 4 |
Protesters | 1 | 2 | 8 | 7 | 13 | 5 | 1 | ||
Trump supporters | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 1 | ||
Pro-Trump mob | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 7 | ||||
Pro-Trump rioters | 3 | 2 | 5 | ||||||
Insurrectionists | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | |||||
Demonstrators | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | |||||
Participants | 2 | ||||||||
Extremists | 3 |
In alignment with the usage of riot, the most common descriptions for participants were mob and rioters, followed by protesters. The frequency of use of Trump supporters comes as no surprise, especially since many of the participants are known to have attended the ‘Stop the Steal’ Trump rally preceding the event.
While most outlets referred to the crowd as protesters in the events leading up to the storming of the Capitol building, not all used that term to describe the people who entered the Capitol building. Fox News, Breitbart, and Epoch Times used protesters more often than any other news media outlet. In fact, these three outlets account for 28 of the 37 news articles in which the term protesters appeared.
On the other hand, the term pro-Trump rioters—which was used by Yahoo News, Business Insider, and CNN—did not appear in any articles by Fox News, Breitbart, or Epoch Times.
Tonal Differences
While some media outlets stuck to relatively neutral descriptors, others used unconventional terms to describe both the incident as well as those involved.
The New York Times and the Washington Post, for example, generally adhered to neutral language. They frequently described the event as a siege and a riot, and those involved as the mob and rioters.
The Epoch Times and Breitbart employed terms like protesters and alleged Trump supporters in discussing the individuals involved.
On the other hand, Yahoo News called it an insurrection carried out by militant supporters of President Trump, and Business Insider talked of a pro-Trump assault on the U.S. Capitol.
The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) potentially reflects how the event was perceived outside of the United States. Terms like riot and stormed appeared most commonly in BBC coverage of the incident. The participants were evenly identified as rioters, Trump supporters, protesters, and more often as the mob.
The Impact of Media Coverage
The influence of news media on how the public perceives events is undeniable. In fact, 88% of surveyed Americans consider the news an essential tool to keep informed about public affairs.
From a riot caused by rioters to an insurrection by President Trump’s militant supporters, the way different media outlets analyze the U.S. Capitol incident impacts what their respective audiences take away from it.
Note: Publications that focus primarily on sports, entertainment, and business were omitted from this analysis. We analyzed 20 articles from each publication that related directly to the Capitol situation and resulting coverage.
War
Visualized: Top 15 Global Tank Fleets
Heavily armed and armored, the modern tank is a versatile and mobile weapons platform, and a critical piece of contemporary warfare.Â
The Top 15 Global Tank Fleets
This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.
Heavily armed and armored, the modern tank is a versatile and mobile weapons platform, and a critical piece of contemporary warfare.
This visualization shows the top 15 global tank fleets, using data from the 2024 Military Balance report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
Let’s take an in-depth look at the top three fleets:
1. United States
As the world’s pre-eminent military power, it’s perhaps no surprise that the United States also has the largest tank fleet, by a wide margin.
In total, they have just over 45,000 armored fighting vehicles in operation, along with 2,640 main battle tanks (MBTs), and 12,800 vehicles in storage, of which 2,000 are main battle tanks.
Category | Vehicles | Global rank |
---|---|---|
Main battle tanks | 2,640 | 4 |
Armored reconnaissance | 1,745 | 1 |
Infantry fighting vehicles | 3,262 | 3 |
Armored personnel carriers | 10,644 | 1 |
Amphibious assault vehicles | 1,401 | 1 |
Armored utility vehicles | 28,445 | 1 |
Storage | 12,800 | 1 |
Total | 60,937 | 1 |
The U.S. is internalizing the lessons from the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, where Western-supplied anti-tank weapons and massed Ukrainian artillery have been cutting Russian tanks to pieces. As a result, the U.S. recently canceled an upgrade of the M1 Abrams in favor of a more ambitious upgrade.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is nervously eyeing a more confident China and a potential clash over Taiwan, where air and naval forces will be critical. However, a recent war game showed that Taiwanese mechanized ground forces, kitted out with American-made tanks and armored fighting vehicles, were critical in keeping the island autonomous.
2. Russia
According to Oryx, a Dutch open-source intelligence defense website, at time of writing, Russia has lost almost 2,800 main battle tanks since invading Ukraine. Considering that in the 2022 edition of the Military Balance, Russia was estimated to have 2,927 MBTs in operation, those are some hefty losses.
Russia has been able to maintain about 2,000 MBTs in the field, in part, by increasing domestic production. Many defense plants have been taken over by state-owned Rostec and now operate around the clock. Russia is also now spending a full third of their budget on defense, equivalent to about 7.5% of GDP.
At the same time, they’ve also been drawing down their Soviet-era stockpiles, which are modernized before being sent to the front. Just how long they can keep this up is an open question; their stockpiles are large, but not limitless. Here is what their storage levels look like:
Category | 2023 | 2024 | YOY change |
---|---|---|---|
Main battle tanks | 5,000 | 4,000 | -20.0% |
Armored reconnaissance | 1,000 | 100 | -90.0% |
Infantry fighting vehicles | 4,000 | 2,800 | -30.0% |
Armored personnel carriers | 6,000 | 2,300 | -61.7% |
Total | 16,000 | 9,200 | -42.5% |
3. China
China holds the third overall spot and top place globally for the number of main battle tanks in operation. Untypically, the People’s Liberation Army has no armored vehicles in storage, which perhaps isn’t surprising when you consider that China has been rapidly modernizing its military and that stockpiles usually contain older models.
China also has one of the world’s largest fleets of armored fighting vehicles, second only to the United States. Breaking down that headline number, we can also see that they have the largest number of light tanks, wheeled guns, and infantry fighting vehicles.Â
Category | Vehicles | Global rank |
---|---|---|
Main battle tanks | 4,700 | 1 |
Light tanks | 1,330 | 1 |
Wheeled guns | 1,250 | 1 |
Infantry fighting vehicles | 8,200 | 1 |
Armored personnel carriers | 3,604 | 5 |
Airborne combat vehicles | 180 | 2 |
Amphibious assault vehicles | 990 | 2 |
Total | 20,254 | 3 |
This is equipment that would be integral if China were to make an attempt to reunify Taiwan with the mainland by force, where lightly armored mechanized units need to move with speed to occupy the island before Western allies can enter the fray. It’s worth noting that China also has one of the world’s largest fleets of amphibious assault vehicles.
End of the Tank?
Many commentators at the outset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, were quick to predict the end of the tank, however, to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the tank’s demise are greatly exaggerated.
With the U.S. and China both developing remote and autonomous armored vehicles, tanks could be quite different in the future, but there is nothing else that matches them for firepower, mobility, and survivability on the modern battlefield today.
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