I’ve been thinking about why terrorism is such a hot topic these days. I mean, bombs aren’t new; they’ve been around for centuries. Religious fanatics obviously aren’t new; they’ve been around for millenia. Fear isn’t new; it’s been around since the Dawn of Mankind. People who are desperate or angry enough to die for a cause they believe in aren’t new, either. So, what is it about today’s world that makes terrorism such a Big Deal? As I see it, there is only one important factor that exists today that hasn’t existed before: a global television industry hungry for sensational news stories.
What gives terrorists the power to capture world attention? It’s not the ability to blow things up; it’s the ability to capture worldwide television air time. Just like soccer’s World Cup or BrAngelina’s baby born in Africa, terrorists get their notoriety from the free publicity given to them by the world’s media giants. Turn back the calendar a few decades and even the attack on Pearl Harbor probably didn’t get the sort of immediate, graphic, global television coverage that, say, last year’s London subway bombing received.
So, what is the best way to stop terrorism? It’s probably not by trying to identify terrorists before they strike. Instead, what if the world’s big media giants just stopped reporting terrorist attacks? Would people blow themselves up knowing that those they wanted to terrorize would not even know about it? Unlikely.
This is why the so-called “War on Terrorism” is not just going to prove futile; it’s going to prove counterproductive. A “war” just attracts more media coverage…and media coverage attracts terrorists the way a light attracts moths: turn up the light and you just attract more moths. Accordingly, no matter how many dollars and lives are sacrificed in the “War on Terrorism,” we can predict that terrorist attacks will not only continue, but will likely get worse: because the media (not the public) is addicted to them and no one is going to put a stop to that.
Of course, this raises a much deeper question: is society better off censoring its press or accepting an increased risk of terrorist attacks? Most people, including this author, would prefer to accept a higher risks in exchange for a free press. But we should, at least, remember that we’re doing so. And so should the media conglomerates, which are just as free to reduce their reporting of attacks as they are to increase it.
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