by Emily McDowell

Created on: March 24, 2010   Last Updated: March 28, 2010

The media’s choice to convey the actions of a terrorist attack effects viewers of the media outlet, the terrorists who planned the attack and victims targeted in the attack by using personal bias in their reporting, causing people to have negative perceptions of the world, and unintentionally spreading the terrorist’s message. 

Journalists always want to be the first to hit the story; they want to be the first ones on the scene, get the best shots, and receive the most sensational comments from witnesses or victims of a terrorist attack.

Whether or not they are sympathizing with the people involved in the attack is second to providing full coverage of the story. They are concerned with getting high ratings as well as informing the American public of what is going on, but perhaps reporters who are live on a scene should take a second look at how they are operating under such conditions. Is what they are reporting accurate? Are they helping the victims rather than being a nuisance to them?

Journalists who do follow-up stories need to also be aware of how much coverage they are giving to a certain terrorist act. Are they giving too much air-time to the incident, perhaps leading to a second look at justification for the act?

Are they showing gruesome or disturbing images over and over again, such as children’s bodies being pulled from a pit in the Oklahoma City Bombing or people jumping from buildings on September 11, which may be causing post-traumatic stress disorder to victims and witnesses? After-the-fact reporters need to examine when enough is enough. 

In Alan M. Dershowitz’s book Why Terrorism Works, he suggests that the media simply ignore acts of terrorism in order to prevent its recurrence.

“Our message must be this: even if you have legitimate grievances, if you resort to terrorism as a means toward eliminating them we will simply not listen to you, we will not try to understand you, and we will certainly never change any of our policies toward you.  Instead, we will hunt you down and destroy your capacity to engage in terror” (Dershowitz 25). 

Whether it is possible to do what Dershowitz suggests is hard to determine.  His message is clear and makes sense in the light of preventing future attacks as well as preventing panic throughout the nation, but the fact remains that it is probably not feasible. 

American people live in a media-driven society, fast-paced and always hungry for more.  Americans turn to the news as their number one source of information, expecting it to be reported fully and accurately.

The best thing that journalists in the media are capable of right now is to set aside their feelings and report stories objectively and fairly, in spite of the emotional response that is impossible to avoid in terrorist attacks. 

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