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Guardian: Media coverage of terrorism “leads to further violence”

Aug 1, 2015 6:27 pm By Robert Spencer

charliehebdocopkilledThis is, of course, patently absurd, and recalls Duke Professor Omid Safi’s exhortation to the media to stop reporting about jihad terror and report instead about Muslims being nice. Media coverage of jihad leads to more jihad? So the jihad imperative founded upon the Qur’an and Sunnah would go away if the cameras stop rolling and journalists like Christiane Amanpour and Niraj Warikoo stop their fawning, pro-jihad coverage of jihad activity? Apparently the Guardian and Michael Jetter believe that we ought to heed the words of Mohammed Atta to the passengers on the airplane he hijacked on September 11, 2001: “Stay quiet and you’ll be okay.”

But they weren’t.

“Media coverage of terrorism ‘leads to further violence,’” by Jamie Doward, Guardian, August 1, 2015:

Violence, so the saying goes, begets violence. Now evidence is emerging that suggests even the reporting of violence can trigger further attacks. Research has found that sensationalist media coverage of acts of terrorism results in more such acts being committed.

The study will prompt further debate about how the international media responds to atrocities. It also raises the possibility that media reports about a terrorist act can be viewed as a “warning” that follow-on attacks will be perpetrated in the near future.

Michael Jetter, a professor at the School of Economics and Finance at Universidad EAFIT in Medellín, Colombia, and a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labour in Bonn, Germany, analysed more than 60,000 terrorist attacks between 1970 and 2012 as reported in the New York Times. Jetter notes that over the past 15 years “the world has experienced a terrifying, exponential increase in the number of terrorist attacks”. The Global Terrorism Database listed 1,395 attacks in 1998, a figure that has steadily risen since then, reaching a record high of 8,441 in 2012.

The total number of casualties from terrorist attacks in the past 15 years has soared from 3,387 to 15,396. At the same time, terrorist groups have increasingly sought to use the media to promote their agendas.

Graphic videos of beheadings filmed by Islamic State and released on the internet have turned the group into a globally feared brand. But they have also prompted anguished questions about how much such organisations should be given “the oxygen of publicity”.

“Terrorist organisations receive extensive media attention,” Jetter says. “Whether it is the Taliban, al-Qaida, Boko Haram or, recently, Isis, terrorism is everywhere on TV stations, newspapers and the radio. We also know that terrorists need media coverage to spread their message, create fear and recruit followers.

“However, until now we did not know whether media attention actively encourages terrorist attacks. This paper derives an empirical methodology to provide an answer to that question.”

Jetter compared headline-grabbing terrorist attacks with those that occurred during a bigger story, such as a natural disaster, and found a clear link between the number of articles devoted to the initial terrorist incident and the number of follow-up attacks over the next few weeks.

The research builds on earlier work by other economists that suggests terrorism causes media attention and vice versa, leading to an inflationary spiral….

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Filed Under: Featured, journalistic bias, Useful idiots Tagged With: Guardian, Michael Jetter


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Comments

  1. Jay Boo says

    Aug 1, 2015 at 6:41 pm

    Being on a permanent defense posture by non-Muslims leads to shameless Muslim grievance mongering, feelings of Islamic entitlement, and lack of empathy by Muslims for the many innocent victims of their carpet kissing pig-bath prayer ideology

    • mortimer says

      Aug 1, 2015 at 9:49 pm

      JB has some good points. The more extreme and ridiculous ‘grievances’ made by the jihadists (‘Americans are raping our women in Syria’) are reported without commentary, rather than counter the egregious falsehoods…when in effect ISIS is doing plenty of LEGALIZED and SACRALIZED raping.

      In an effort to appear neutral, it does look like journalists are giving the jihadists an advantage…but they say the same thing whenever one of their atrocities is reported.

      • No Fear says

        Aug 2, 2015 at 12:50 am

        Come you Islamophobes, don’t be so negative about Islam.
        Mohammed did nice things:

        The Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) sent a military expedition to Awtas on the occasion of the battle of Hunain. They met their enemy and fought with them. They defeated them and took them captives.

        Some of the Companions of the Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) were reluctant to have intercourse with the female captives in the presence of their husbands who were unbelievers. So Allah, the Exalted, sent down the Qur’anic verse: (Sura 4:24) “And all married women (are forbidden) unto you save those (captives) whom your right hands possess.” (Abu Dawud 2150, also Muslim 3433)

        There you go. That was nice of Mohammed wasn’t it?

        • ECAW says

          Aug 2, 2015 at 2:23 am

          Who are you calling an Islamophobe, you Islamophobophobe!

          But you’re right, we don’t hear enough about Mohammed’s caring side. Like when he said “Be good to your women for they are as domestic animals with you”

        • Ron Sandilands says

          Aug 2, 2015 at 8:20 pm

          Mohammed never existed. All those people who believe in the myth need a reality check.

  2. particolor says

    Aug 1, 2015 at 7:02 pm

    NO ?
    And I’ve looked back through History and still NO ! 🙁

  3. Paul says

    Aug 1, 2015 at 7:04 pm

    I guess that’s what spurred on Nazi atrocities during WW2 then.
    If it wasn’t for coverage of their bombing raids etc., they’d have
    stopped killing people much earlier and would have surrendered.

    • gravenimage says

      Aug 1, 2015 at 10:28 pm

      Good parallel–that shows how absurd this claim is.

      In reality, there is more reporting of Jihad terror because there is more Jihad terror–this witless article gets cause and effect exactly backwards.

      • Paul says

        Aug 2, 2015 at 2:12 am

        The Guardian is such a preposterous publication that bends over
        backwards to act as an apologist for jihadi terror. This latest piece
        by them is rather mild by their standards.

  4. Neil Jennison says

    Aug 1, 2015 at 7:12 pm

    That is 100% correct. It defeats me as to why anyone with more than one brain cell doesn’t understand what Islam is about. They don’t hide it……well obviously they lie to US…….but it doesn’t take much research to realise the truth about Islam.

  5. Angemon says

    Aug 1, 2015 at 7:21 pm

    Violence, so the saying goes, begets violence. Now evidence is emerging that suggests even the reporting of violence can trigger further attacks. Research has found that sensationalist media coverage of acts of terrorism results in more such acts being committed.

    So… Iraq and Syria’s news programs must have been quite similar to snuff films, right?

  6. Alex says

    Aug 1, 2015 at 7:25 pm

    Some muslims that I know are nice. But that’s because they ignore the calls to violence in their Qu’ran.

  7. gerard says

    Aug 1, 2015 at 7:46 pm

    This is a chicken and egg idea. Is Media reporting fuelling Jihad? Some points to consider:
    1. Jihad has been around long before the modern Media.
    2. Media reporting has been rather thin to say the least and when it does report on Jihad it bends over backwards to assure its readers that, famously “It has nothing to do with Islam”.
    3. “Ignore them and they’ll go away”. When has that ever worked?
    4. Hosea 4: 6 My people perish from a lack of knowledge …
    Yes, hide the truth. That’ll help a bunch! The “bunch” being the Jihadists.

  8. DP111 says

    Aug 1, 2015 at 8:37 pm

    Is the Guardian advocating that the state unleash violence against any group it dislikes, but the media is forced not to report it, as violence begets violence.

  9. RonaldB says

    Aug 1, 2015 at 8:42 pm

    This is a study of correlations rather than a controlled experimental study, so it’s results and conclusions should be taken with caution.

    I have not read the study and don’t plan to currently. However, as reported here, the methodology was to assess the number of terror attacks which occurred during a quiet period, when the terror attack would grab all the headlines, as opposed to situations where the terror attack would be competing for headlines. The results suggested that more terror attacks occurred when the attack would generate the most headlines.

    A valid question is whether publicity generates more terror attacks, or just shuffles them around. We know, also from studies, that terrorists are generally wealthier and better educated than the average. Perhaps terrorists, when planning an attack, will consciously postpone the attack if it has competition for publicity. That doesn’t mean that publicity generates terror, but just shifts it around. These are the sort of questions you get when you depend on a correlational study.

    Another question apparently not considered was the possibility that publicizing attacks mobilized the opposition necessary to oppose the radical terror. The candidacy of Donald Trump probably rests in large part on people hearing about the crimes and violence associated with immigrants from the internet and somewhat off-establishment news such as Fox.

    So again, to make policy blindly based on correlational studies could have unintended side-effects that run counter to your intentions.

  10. Karen says

    Aug 1, 2015 at 8:51 pm

    Reminds me of the debates about the violence of TV and movies, only the connection to real-world violence was always denied by the ‘experts’. So why should we believe this study? Terrorists will only be de-energized when they read news reports of jihad activities being totally opposed and defeated.

  11. Don McKellar says

    Aug 1, 2015 at 8:58 pm

    Stop talking about and doing news stories about the Nazis and we never would have had World War 2!

    AHAAHAHAHHA!

    So what is their case about Sept 11. 2001? Did all those news stories about Islamic supremacist jihadis cause that?

    Let’s all stick our heads in the sand stop reporting the news with regards to Islam’s “bad side” and it will go away! BRILLIANT!

    • No Fear says

      Aug 2, 2015 at 12:54 am

      LOL. Yes, according to Goebbels: “Nothing happened (during Kristallnacht). There was no damage done. It is all a bunch of stinking Jewish lies.”

  12. Don McKellar says

    Aug 1, 2015 at 9:04 pm

    Sure — they can be very nice to other moslems. Some of those Islamic charities are legit and not just for terror funding. But the recipients are ONLY moslems. Ever. That’s mandated by Islam. So, the answer is yes, moslems can be nice — to each other.

    And, as Alex says, very disobedient, lax moslems who are not following their religion, can be nice as well. But they really aren’t being moslems except by the label they may have hanging on them. Certainly they are not following Islam, and operating outside it, and, frankly, against its tenants.

  13. gravenimage says

    Aug 1, 2015 at 10:32 pm

    Guardian: Media coverage of terrorism “leads to further violence”
    …………………………….

    Yeah–let’s leave the Infidels in the dark about the skyrocketing threat of Islam. That’ll lead to fewer Jihad terror attacks–or maybe it will just seem that way…

  14. JIMJFOX says

    Aug 2, 2015 at 1:55 am

    Time for the jihadis to repeat the Charlie Hebdo attack on the ‘Grauniad’.

    Nobody deserves it more

    • cs says

      Aug 2, 2015 at 3:21 am

      Affirmative.

  15. cs says

    Aug 2, 2015 at 2:53 am

    The comments there are bizarre, they are actually agreeing with this non-sense.

  16. PJG says

    Aug 2, 2015 at 4:00 am

    How agreeable this writer is; he has unconsciously accepted the sharia ban on negative portrayals of Islam. Of course his clever idea won’t stop further attacks, but it will please Muslims, and that’s the main thing, isn’t it?

  17. Baucent says

    Aug 2, 2015 at 4:58 am

    You could follow that line of reasoning and suppose that reporting sightings of incidences of road rage causes more such attacks. Or do news stories about UFO’s cause more sightings to be reported? While you can never rule out the possibility someone will be influenced to do something the media reports, it is far more likely their inspiration came from elsewhere. Videos of radical preachers are far more likely to inspire an jihadist act than simple reporting of the facts of an attack.
    Ultimately where Jetter is heading is to recommend self censorship of the media which is not in the public interest

  18. Goat Pimp says

    Aug 2, 2015 at 5:05 am

    Correlation does not mean causation you idiot. That is a first rule of science.

  19. AJW Liverpool says

    Aug 2, 2015 at 6:46 am

    I was going to email this website a link to this Guardian article. i couldn’t believe how deceptive and manipulative it was.

    If memory serves me correctly after the beheading in South France recently, the French media was suggesting the same. The called it the phenomenon of ISLAMONAUSEA – and called for the press to be blocked from reporting because it was causing discrimination against poor Muslims. That was the gist anyway.

    If this is a trend, it smacks of desperation on behalf of the Left. The can see a rising anger amongst the infidel populations and they are so desperate to keep a lid on it, they come up with this Doublethink Newspeak nonsense.

  20. Enfant Terrible says

    Aug 2, 2015 at 7:24 am

    “However, until now we did not know whether media attention actively encourages terrorist attacks. This paper derives an empirical methodology to provide an answer to that question.” – And, it appears that only Muslims are watching/reading media. Since, with few exceptions, they’re the ones perpetrating all the terror.

  21. Undaunted says

    Aug 2, 2015 at 10:08 am

    No, what leads to more violence is perfectly depicted in the photo posted above: People, in this case a French law enforcement officer, totally unprepared to meet and defeat an attacker.

    Because of stupid “leaders” the cop had no weapon. And perhaps it was the personal choice of the dead officer; maybe he chose to be on the unarmed squad, counting on his superior “people skills” to protect the innocent. His training was obviously wanting: if HQ isn’t going to arm you, they’re not going to train you to do some armed… thing. He did not have the warrior mind-set because he simply lay there and begged the shooter not to cap him instead of trying “with his last ounce of courage” to take down that savage piece of shit even if all he might have been able to do was bite him on the ankle.

    If that French cop had been properly armed, trained, and motivated, he’d have come up with a tactical plan to find, fix, and destroy the attackers. When law enforcement of any nation, state, or stripe fails to find-fix-destroy the enemy, THAT leads to further violence.

  22. Token says

    Aug 2, 2015 at 10:18 am

    Actually, current reporting of Islamic atrocities probably does encourage more violence…by Islamists.

    I suspect extensive reporting of terrorists being shot by cops and civilians [without undue legal repercussions], mosques being closed and terrorist supporters and their families being deported and a vigorous campaign of opposition and denunciation of the oppressive religion and totalitarian political ideology of Islam might serve to turn things around. I suspect we may have to wait a while before that happens, however…

  23. TexasScout says

    Aug 2, 2015 at 11:44 am

    I hate to say it, but I do agree that, the more coverage these murderers get, the more likely it is that they will do more of it. The world needs to know, but sometimes….

  24. rcourtemanche says

    Aug 2, 2015 at 3:44 pm

    Libertarians, left-wing media, etc empower extremism.

  25. Badbob says

    Aug 2, 2015 at 4:59 pm

    The words of a co conspirator

  26. stanley says

    Aug 3, 2015 at 6:03 am

    Media coverage of terrorism “leads to further violence”

    Of course it does, just like reporting crime leads to more crime.

  27. Matthieu Baudin says

    Aug 3, 2015 at 8:25 am

    The Guardian newspaper produced some very thoughtful articles and editorial commentary throughout the Gorbachev period towards the end of the Cold War, but has been in steady decline since then, becoming locked into the moral/cultural relativism of the new left.
    If the paper had made an effort to grapple with the internal logic of Islam over the past thirty years, then it would still be worth reading; but like most of its readership, it has made little attempt to take the bull by the horns and has instead been content to trifle around the peripheries and satisfied simply to maintain a false progressive gloss.

  28. AJW Liverpool says

    Aug 3, 2015 at 9:04 am

    I have posted a comment on there, hoping some of you might add some words of support:

    http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/aug/01/media-coverage-terrorism-further-violence#comment-56849100 (ChuckMartell post).

    It is not all doom and gloom. There are 400+ comments on there, but the ones with the most ‘likes’ were critical. Look at this:

    “So,let’s not report atrocities done in the name of that religion to somehow protect us from it? Or is it lets stop reporting it so people don’t realise how evil it actually is.” 14 likes

    and

    “Yeah, let’s blame everything except fucking Islam.” got 44 likes!

    😀

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