Terrorism And The Media

Is it the extremist, or the media, that blow things up?
-Loesje

It's both. The "all news all the time" channels have decided to move on from 24/7 coverage of Paris Hilton and the release of the iPhone to 24/7 coverage of the failed car bombing attempt in London and the amateur attempt to blow-up the terminal at Glasgow airport. This morning I tuned into CNN news right in the middle of what I first thought was a report of a bomb attack at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Glasgow. A small jolt of panic coursed through me. More terrorist attacks? No, two controlled detonations set off by the bomb squad.

The next piece of earth shattering news? One of the terrorist in the airport explosion was a doctor! How could any doctor be part of a terrorist plot? Lots of discussion on this point. Not one reporter points out that this should not be that surprising since Che Guevara, Norman Bethune, and George Hatem were all doctors. Extreme ideology has no educational or class boundaries.

All news is not earth shattering. A terrorist suspect being a doctor does not deserve the kind of "in depth reporting" that the attempted car bombing of a city does. There is HEADLINE NEWS and then there is fill up the rest of the paper news. The problem with 24/7 news channels is that most of their news is fill up the rest of the paper news treated like headline news. They have been doing this so long they don't seem to know the difference between the two anymore and because they don't know the difference neither does most of the public watching them.

What is even more disturbing is the way they play up the real news stories. Terrorist are everywhere! Danger is everywhere! There is difference between keeping the public informed and scaremongering. When will these news channels learn that?