Brooke: As we heard, refraining from using the word "terrorism" may seem judicious, but sometimes it’s construed as bias. The hashtag #MuslimLivesMatter was sparked by outrage over the murders of the three young Muslim-Americans in Chapel Hill -- and by the American media’s response to it, marked both by belated coverage and the failure to characterize the murders as a kind of terrorism.

TV clip: News of the killings spread across social media. Hashtag #muslimlivesmatter and hashtag #chapelhillshooting, raised questions about whether hate was a possible motive...

Brooke: Egyptian officials cautioned against the growing victimization of Western Muslims. The Lebanese government called the killings “terrorism” and a “crime against humanity.” Palestinians in Gaza protested and decried the “double standards” of the West.

FOX News clip: Muslims, especially all over the world, are berating the American media for not playing up what they see as a religious aspect to these murders.

Brooke: Rana Sweis is a journalist based in Jordan, where two of the murder victims had citizenship. She says that in the aftermath of the shooting, social media in the Arab world was quick to condemn mainstream American coverage, which took a full day to report the story.  

Sweis: Well, I think really, it's about holding the America media, that prides itself in objectivity and independence and freedom of speech to a higher standard than Arab media. In the Arab world, so much of the media is controlled by governments and there's so much self censorship. There's an expectation that there will be media bias. But they hold the American media more to account. So we saw for example the hashtag #hypocrisy used a lot to describe the media in the US.

Brooke: And there have  been some reactions from cartoonists as well.

Sweis: A famous cartoonist in Jordan, Osama Hajjaj, posted on Twitter a menacing depiction of Mr. Hicks in the colors of the American flag. So, his hair was red, and his pupils were stars, and he had a blue nose. But his beard, and his mouth, which were black, resembled an Islamic State militant dressed in black and saying, "Terror has many faces." We've seen many social media posts attempting to liken Hicks with Islamic extremists accusing of killing Americans. A week ago Friday, the front page of Al Ghad newspaper, an independent daily newspaper, had photos of the three victims and the headline was "Two Jordanian Victims of Hate Crime in the US." So, the judgement on Mr. Hicks was already made that this was a hate crime.

Brooke: How did they process the initial reports out of Chapel Hill that this was over a parking dispute?

Sweis: It was seen as a joke. The reactions I think stem from this feeling that Arabs feel that they are under siege inside and outside the Middle East. In a way under siege from ISIS, that is pretending to speak in the name of their religion, which of course the majority are against. And also this legacy of US interventions in the region that have left deep scars on the regional psyche, including I think a feeling that Americans see any Arab as an enemy. One thing I notice is that there is of course hate speech on both sides. Very extreme Americans saying racist things online, and vice versa, of course, people here using hate speech against Americans. But there's also a constructive dialogue and legitimate questions that I think are really spurring a debate that we should pay attention to. For example some Americans are saying, look, Muslim lives matter, they really do, but when Muslims are thrown off buildings by ISIS, where's the outrage?

Brooke: I assume there must be outrage.

Sweis: There is but we have not seen the same reaction, even online, and you know arguably Arabs are asking, "Where was the West in terms of intervention when hundreds of thousands of Sunnis were killed in Iraq?" America intervened when their journalists were killed... So a lot of interesting questions. I think its a very healthy debate that came about from the Chapel Hill executions.

Brooke: Nihad Awad, the National Executive Director of the Council on American Islamic relations said, "this case is quickly becoming a touchstone for the American Muslim community's sense of security and inclusion." Is there a sense that it's a touchstone in the region as well?

Sweis: Arabs, and I think Arab Americans and Muslim-Americans, feel that because of their insistence on creating the hashtag and making noise if you will, on social media, they feel that they force the mainstream media to cover this properly. So there is a sense of empowerment that has emerged from this incident. And Yusor and Razan, the two victims who were Jordanian-Americans, they're regarded by Muslim-Americans and people here in the region as regular young people, you know, seeking a high quality education, a career. They really represent the majority of Muslims in the West who are seeking exactly the same thing. So there was a sort of identifying with the victims.

Brooke: Speaking specifically of Jordan, which was recently shaken by a horrible video of a pilot being burned alive by ISIS, do you suspect that this climate has anything to do with the reaction of the Arab world to the Chapel Hill shootings?

Sweis: It's not something separate, but it's also a little different. Arabs and Muslims in the region, they want to have an influence of how their religion and their faith is portrayed in the American media. Right now it's being hijacked by extremists like ISIS. So this incident made them want to have an influence on how this story is covered because of who the victims were. The 2 women emigrated from Jordan seeking education and a better life and success and they achieved it in many ways - and then they were brutally killed. So Arabs wanted to make sure to show another side of Muslims and Americans and a way to demonstrate that there is another side to these people.

Brooke: I see. The coverage is there, not just because it's an outrageous murder, but because at the center of it are two, or three, model young people - people with whom anybody can identify. Rana, thank you very much.

Sweis: Thank you for having me.

Brooke: Rana Sweis is a freelance journalist for the New York Times and a media researcher in Amman, Jordan.