I’ve said a few times that terrorism is primarily a media war. I am certainly not the first to point this out, but its truth has become more and more evident. Our press is either extraordinarily gullible or actively hoping for bad things to happen. (Witness the New York Times’ 30 (imagined) beheaded bodies or the work of Bilal “photo op” Hussein.)
Today I read this stunning piece in the Washington Post.
More ink equals more blood, claim two economists who say that newspaper coverage of terrorist incidents leads directly to more attacks. [...]
"Both the media and terrorists benefit from terrorist incidents," their study contends. Terrorists get free publicity for themselves and their cause. The media, meanwhile, make money "as reports of terror attacks increase newspaper sales and the number of television viewers."
The researchers counted direct references to terrorism between 1998 and 2005 in the New York Times and Neue Zuercher Zeitung, a respected Swiss newspaper. They also collected data on terrorist attacks around the world during that period. Using a statistical procedure called the Granger Causality Test, they attempted to determine whether more coverage directly led to more attacks.
The results, they said, were unequivocal: Coverage caused more attacks, and attacks caused more coverage -- a mutually beneficial spiral of death that they say has increased because of a heightened interest in terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001. [emphasis mine]
Add this to Zarqawi’s media analysis:
Based on the above points, it became necessary that these matters should be treated one by one:
1. To improve the image of the resistance in society, increase the number of supporters who are refusing occupation and show the clash of interest between society and the occupation and its collaborators. To use the media for spreading an effective and creative image of the resistance. [emphasis mine]
Media’s response? You betcha!
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