Now "terrorism" is a hot button term in politics since 9/11 and has been egregiously abused by the Bush Administration among others. But we can't allow them to own this term entirely. We have to call a spade a spade, and violence in the interests of getting the media to help catalyze political change is "terrorism." I don't see any other workable definition.
The killer's direct effort to involve the media is more bald than anything we've seen in America since the unabomber offered to desist provided his manifesto was published in the NYTimes and WaPo. The media agreed to do this and his own brother read and recognized it leading to his arrest and life imprisonment. However, the unabomber's mission had succeeded: he had obtained lasting infamy for himself and gotten his scratchings published in the leading dailies of the world.
So too has the Va. Tech mass murderer. While I have not read the manifesto or watched the videos, I understand he cites the Columbine killers as martyrs. Those teenagers succeeded in dominating the news cycle for weeks as well as inspiring a feature film. All of these creeps have overwhelmingly achieved their objective: getting the attention for their ideas and person that is normally reserved for the leading lights in society.
Because the media has agreed, apparently very willingly, to provide it to them.
I've had letters published in the NYTimes to this effect but of course the media are corporations in a competitive marketplace and will not turn away from a blockbuster story. Even if their collective and individual actions lead to an increase in terrorism.
Fatigue among the viewer/readership is the only ultimate antidote to this problem. The suicide bombings in Israel earlier this decade became so routine that there was no story left. No one particularly got excited about them. So they tailed off (cue numerous protests from the antizionists arguing it was Israeli military abuses that are responsible). There's no bounce left in blowing up a bus in Jerusalem. Not with a woman, not with a developmentally disabled child, no-how.
But in America there is still an attention jackpot for terrorists to win, and we are happy to provide them with all the tools needed...easy access to guns, video cameras, combat gear, and beautiful young women to slaughter. Of all the ingredients, it's actually the media coverage that is the easiest to remove. If the violent are certain to be ignored for their acts, they lose their luster. They can no longer be terrorists. They are reduced to common butchers.
Since facilitating terrorist acts until we learn to collectively ignore them is obviously out of the question, the burden falls upon the media to police itself. Their role is in the public interest. Certainly, the public has a right to know many things. But is it right to know them? Aren't we trying to set up a system where the public is protected by the press, rather than killers rewarded by it?
If you add up the cost of a week of 24x7 media coverage, it comes to well over a billion dollars. This is the blood money the violent are lavished with if they'll just do something newsworthy. It doesn't matter what, if it bleeds, it leads.
The violent should be the very least important people, and their acts the most ignored, in our society. It must be incontrovertable that there is no reward for such malice. This must be absolutely iron-clad and guaranteed.
Consider it a Hippocratic oath for journalism. For they are doing harm.
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