The White House released a list of 78 terror attacks around the world on Monday, saying most of them did not get sufficient attention from the media.
The release came after President Donald Trump appeared to accuse the media of covering up terrorist attacks by not reporting them.
"You’ve seen what happened in Paris and Nice. All over Europe it's happening," the president told military commanders at Central Command.
"It’s gotten to a point where it's not even being reported. And in many cases the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that.”
Mr Trump offered no evidence for the claim.
Here's the list the White House sent of attacks they feel "did not receive adequate attention from Western media sources." pic.twitter.com/lj8eOZQfnY
— Kevin Liptak (@Kevinliptakcnn) February 7, 2017
Sean Spicer, Mr Trump's spokesman, later said the president was accusing the media of "under reporting" rather than not reporting terrorist attacks.
Before issuing the list, he said: "There’s several instances. There’s a lot of instances that have occurred where I don’t think they've gotten the coverage it deserved.
"Protest gets blown out of the water and yet an attack or a foiled attack doesn't necessarily get the same coverage."
The list includes incidents like a truck massacre in Nice that killed dozens and received widespread attention, as well as less high-profile incidents in which nobody was killed.
One of the listed incidents was the fatal stabbing of British tourist Mia Ayliffe-Chung in Australia in August 2016, which Queensland Police specifically determined to be a murder case rather than a terrorist attack.
"Networks are not devoting to each of them the same level of coverage they once did," a White House official said. "This cannot be allowed to become the 'new normal.'"
It was Mr Trump's latest salvo against the news media, a favorite target for derision that he says broadly underestimated his chances during the presidential campaign. He has kept up the attacks since his January 20 inauguration.
Al Tompkins at The Poynter Institute, a Florida-based journalism school, dismissed Mr Trump's criticism.
"To suggest that journalists have some reason not to report ISIS attacks is just outlandish," Mr Tompkins said, using an acronym for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
Mr Trump made the accusations while addressing a gathering of troops in Florida during his first visit to the Central Command headquarters.
The president said he wanted to allow into the United States people who "want to love our country," as he defended his controversial travel ban.
Mr Trump reaffirmed his support for Nato before military leaders and troops, and laced his speech with references to homeland security. But he did not directly mention the travel ban case.
The president told the troops and commanders that "we need strong programmes" so that "people that love us and want to love our country and will end up loving our country are allowed in" and those who "want to destroy us and destroy our country" are kept out.
He continued: "Freedom, security and justice will prevail.
"We will defeat radical Islamic terrorism and we will not allow it to take root in our country. We're not going to allow it."
