Were I to be president for a day here is what I would do.
I would invite every television network with an audience of
more than 1 million citizens to attend a meeting at the white house. The
subject of the meeting would be terrorism.
When assembled I would ask them for a commitment that
whenever there is a terrorist event anywhere in the world they agree to report
the incident in exactly the same way.
Just the details. The location, the presumed casualties, the
method, the source and any other pertinent information that might give citizens
information related to travel restrictions, warnings or suggestions.
Beyond that I would ask them to promise the news would never
be reported in more detail. No faces of the perpetrators, no scenes of the
bloodshed, no connections to every other terrorist incident that has occurred
in the last decade, no on air talking heads, no experts telling us about more
intended targets and once the vital stats are in then it goes off the air
completely, one-day coverage only, NO VIDEO.
There are two things going on with terrorist activities.
One, is what they do and how they do it, is terrifying everyone in this, and
other peace seeking countries, and two, it gives the terrorists exactly what
they want, publicity, coverage and home grown bragging rights.
If they see the news and it includes a spoken only
announcement, with no video, of two bombings in Saudi Arabia, for example, at
two different mosques, with an estimated number of people killed and wounded,
period, they might not be so interested in continuing these horrible
activities. There would be no one to know anything more about what they are up
to. They would become faceless, nameless and above all else voiceless.
Terrorists need a vehicle to continue the fear their reign
of terror infects in us all. Since they cannot kill everyone in the world,
although that is probably their intensions, the idea of killing, death,
terrorism and fear are their weapons of choice but they need media coverage in
order to intensify the horror and immediacy of their activities.
Our national media only assists them in their messaging and
gives them the coverage they could never afford to buy. Profiles of the attackers, photographs
and video of their lives before they detonate, where they come from,
information about their families, their travel history, age, background and any
other pertinent data media can uncover. It is a full profile of someone who is
so invisible before they committed the crime they are probably not even known
by the people living next door to them. Now they are international superstars,
but only to the very worst people in the world. And, it is only because we gave
them the voice.
We are told to go on with our lives, given all the stats
about how it is just as likely we can step on a turtle and die as it is to die
from a terrorist attack but those messages are a total waste of time. We go to
airports, movie theaters, ball games etc and never go there without constant
reminders of the terror lurking in the dark. We are afraid and that is exactly
the place these people want us to be.
Do we really need our media to further our fear with the
images of death, bloodshed, destruction and chaos just before we go to sleep or
to Disney Land?
