re: #32 Blind Frog Belly White

Let’s not forget that a large part of their goal is to get the non-Muslim population of Western countries to isolate and alienate their Muslim countrymen, and in that they have the eager assistance of racists and bigots in those countries.

I wonder about the role of the media in this, too. Doubtlessly, Islamic terrorists planning attacks in the West, account for maximum media impact for as little cost as possible. The more people dead, or the more shocking, the more media coverage and so the more terrified people become. The anti-Muslim backlash that inevitably follows causes, in the terrorists minds, a split between Muslims and non-Muslims, and drives Muslims to become more extreme.

It is a cononudrum. Obviously, news media have to report stuff like this, because if they don’t, their competitors will. But I wonder if it might be a good idea to follow the same rules reccomended by Dr. Park Dietz, the forensic psychiatrist who advises media outlets on their reporting of school shootings. There’s a video where he says that after every school shooting, inside of a week, there’s another - a copycat attack. He says to stop mass shootings, the media has to:
- localise the story to the affected area
- NOT publish casualty numbers
- NOT depict the assailants in that grim, overhyped, villainous/antiheroic gravitas (guys in masks with machine guns, North Hollywood shootout style)
- DO make the story as small as possible, DO provide accurate information that is needed for people affected, but other than that, try to minimise and not sensationalise the story.

By reporting in that manner, Dr. Dietz asserts, you starve terrorists of coverage of their attacks, which is a significant motivator and which they use to try to split the social fabric. It also reduces fear and anxiety in the population, it reduces the perception among Muslims that they are being persecuted with negative/stereotyped portrayals, it reduces the feeling among targeted or vulnerable members of the population that they are at risk of being attacked, etc.

It is a somewhat controversial approach, but I honestly do wish that the 24 hour news coverage of these events was toned down a bit.

And if I am being 100 percent honest, I will say that I experience a morbid fascination when watching the coverage of these events. It is like a vicarious fear. It injects a feeling of ‘important stuff happening in the world’ into my life - I can’t put it very artfully, but thats sort of the general feeling. I don’t mean I enjoy watching these in any way, but I still feel like the 24 hour coverage of these tragedies is, in some ways, presented like it is entertainment. Not ‘fun’ or enjoyable entertainment, but as I said, morbidly curious entertainment.
I think sometimes it crosses the line from being informative, to pure rubbernecking. Then again, maybe it is my choice in tuning in.