Terrorists are flacks
: Doc Searls:
…the Berg beheading was not an act of war; it was an act of publicity.
8 responses to “Terrorists are flacks”
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It was precisely an act of publicity, as all terrorism is.
And the deliberate suppression of those images, and any substantive discussion of them, by our ‘journalists’ in the mainstream media is a calculated act of opinion-steering. -
Doc is right that is was a PR move. That’s what terrorism is: An attempt to frighten people into capitulation when you’d otherwise lack the ability to defeat them. The act fails if the intended target does not frighten.
Hafta disagree, though, that choosing not to publish image of the Berg beheading is a “calculated act of opinion-steering.” It seems to me an act intended not to sicken people. I don’t need or want to see tape of a beheading to be repulsed and angered by it, thank you very much. Imagination suffices. Making decisions about what to present to readers and what to leave out is essential to journalism. Readers do it, too. And so does Jeff and every other blogger when they decide what they want to write about. -
“…act of publicity” – so are embedded journalists, the staged “toppling” of Sadam’s statue, the Jessica Lynch “rescue”….
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Actually, I thought it was a lesson in beheading for all good would be muslim terrorists. Maybe the media is right not to be posting jihadi techniques of the dumb and the demented.
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On the same note, see Mark Borkowski’s posting — The vile PR stunt that escalates the hatred
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Well, it seems the viewers from the ME were so huge in numbers that some sites could hardly handle the increase in traffic. Any site which posted the URL for the video got bombarded —and the majority were from the ME. Go figure. On line jihad for dummies with a demo on the art of beheading innocents.
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mm, are you just figuring out that people try to influence how the media presents them? Ooh, how evil…
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“Hafta disagree, though, that choosing not to publish image of the Berg beheading is a “calculated act of opinion-steering.” It seems to me an act intended not to sicken people.”
Nice euphemism, lousy logic. TV has perfected the art of displaying and selling violence over the past decades, and computer games do the same or worse with sickening images. Where’s the concern for ‘the people’ in front of the screens? The sickening trophy images, taken LAST WINTER by and for the jerks abusing the prisoners of Abu Ghreib, were only leaked to the press in April when one of said jerks feared he’d be held to account by the Army investigation. Sickening is apparently fine as long as it’s transferable to the Bush administration. But sickening by hooded sadists on the other side, well, it’s just too much to bear. Can’t let ‘the people’ draw the wrong conclusions, can we.
