Timm writes: "Islamic fundamentalists probably aren't going to kill us all,
but watching TV news will convince you otherwise."
Terrorism happens, but not nearly as often as television news likes to make
viewers think. (photo: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images)
Our Media's ISIS Threat Hype Machine: Government Stenography at Its Worst
By Trevor Timm, Guardian UK
08 July 15
Islamic fundamentalists probably aren't going to kill us all, but watching
TV news will convince you otherwise
If you turned on US cable news at any point last week, you might have
thought this July 4 holiday would be our last weekend on earth - the
supposed terrorist masterminds in Isis and their alleged vast sleeper cell
army were going to descend upon America like the aliens in Independence Day
and destroy us all.
CNN has led the pack in whipping Americans into a panic over the Isis
threat, running story after story with government officials and terrorism
industry money-makers hyping the threat, played against the backdrop of
scary b-roll of terrorist training camps. Former CIA deputy director Mike
Morell ominously told CBS last week that "I wouldn't be surprised if we
weren't sitting here a week from today talking about an attack over the
weekend in the United States." MSNBC and Fox joined in too, using graphics
and maps right out of Stephen Colbert's satirical "Doom Bunker," suggesting
World War III was just on the verge of reaching America's shores.
Nothing happened, of course. But it was an abject lesson in how irrational
government fear-mongering still controls our public discourse, even when
there wasn't a shred of hard evidence for any sort of attack, only a feeling
that one might happen.
The media totally bought into this frenzy, despite the fact that the FBI and
other intelligence agencies openly admitted they did not have any "specific"
or "credible" threat information to hinge the holiday-weekend warnings on.
Naturally, we didn't find this out until several paragraphs down in any of
the articles about the subject, and on television it sometimes wasn't
mentioned at all. Even when it was, the lack of push-back or questioning was
startling. For example, this report from NBC News:
You almost have to appreciate the amount of discipline it takes to write two
back-to-back sentences like that without expressing even a hint of
skepticism: we have no evidence proving you're in danger, but you absolutely
should be very afraid!
It was an incredible turnaround from just a week before, even for the
American fear-mongering machine. Following the tragedy in Charleston, where
a white supremacist terrorist killed nine innocent churchgoers, there was -
finally! - widespread acknowledgement that the Islamic terrorism threat in
this country is vastly exaggerated, and that white supremacists actually
kill many more Americans than Muslim extremists do.
As Glenn Greenwald wrote at the time, you are more likely to be struck by
lightning, stung to death by bees or killed your own falling furniture on
you than you are by a Muslim terrorist. Yet there we were, less than a week
later, back to an "Isis is going to kill us all" mentality.
Bill Maher complained this weekend that, "Cable news is Isis' best ally."
And he's absolutely right. While CNN was by far the loudest and most idiotic
- the dildo-laden Isis flag at London's gay pride parade was only a
particularly laughable taste of the network's alarmism - all the cable news
channels have happily played along. Yet hardly any of the talking-head
"experts" bothered to ask whether our military's continued bombing of the
Middle East might be exacerbating the chances of a terrorist attack on US
soil, rather than dissipating it.
Journalist Adam Johnson went back a decade and found 40 other times the FBI
and Homeland Security have issued similar threats around national holidays
or major events, none of which actually was followed by a terrorist attack.
It's more than a little disturbing how much CNN and others have seemingly
grown to rely on these nebulous warnings to keep viewers hooked. As Johnson
quipped on Twitter earlier this week, "Can the FBI break its
terror-predicting 0-40 losing streak this weekend? Tune into CNN to find
out!"
All of this doesn't mean that a terrorist attack on US won't eventually
happen. Simple math tells us that, no matter the precautions taken or the
civil liberties taken away, one may get through. But it is a rare event, and
one which human beings have lived with throughout our history. By magnifying
it and terrifying everyone, we're only doing the terrorists' job for them.
No one is suggesting we ignore the existence of Isis. The savage attack on
civilians in Tunisia was a deplorable tragedy, and the group actively
threatens many people in the Middle East. But even as we mourn the victims
and steel our resolve, the idea that we should upend our way of life based
on an extremely remote possibility that we, in the end, have no ability to
control is absurd.
As for those vague terror warnings that didn't materialize over the weekend?
They've been extended.
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Terrorism happens, but not nearly as often as television news likes to make
viewers think. (photo: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images)
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/06/isis-cnn-terrorism-thre
at-hype-machine-government-prhttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/j
ul/06/isis-cnn-terrorism-threat-hype-machine-government-pr
Our Media's ISIS Threat Hype Machine: Government Stenography at Its Worst
By Trevor Timm, Guardian UK
08 July 15
Islamic fundamentalists probably aren't going to kill us all, but watching
TV news will convince you otherwise
f you turned on US cable news at any point last week, you might have
thought this July 4 holiday would be our last weekend on earth - the
supposed terrorist masterminds in Isis and their alleged vast sleeper cell
army were going to descend upon America like the aliens in Independence Day
and destroy us all.
CNN has led the pack in whipping Americans into a panic over the Isis
threat, running story after story with government officials and terrorism
industry money-makers hyping the threat, played against the backdrop of
scary b-roll of terrorist training camps. Former CIA deputy director Mike
Morell ominously told CBS last week that "I wouldn't be surprised if we
weren't sitting here a week from today talking about an attack over the
weekend in the United States." MSNBC and Fox joined in too, using graphics
and maps right out of Stephen Colbert's satirical "Doom Bunker," suggesting
World War III was just on the verge of reaching America's shores.
Nothing happened, of course. But it was an abject lesson in how irrational
government fear-mongering still controls our public discourse, even when
there wasn't a shred of hard evidence for any sort of attack, only a feeling
that one might happen.
The media totally bought into this frenzy, despite the fact that the FBI and
other intelligence agencies openly admitted they did not have any "specific"
or "credible" threat information to hinge the holiday-weekend warnings on.
Naturally, we didn't find this out until several paragraphs down in any of
the articles about the subject, and on television it sometimes wasn't
mentioned at all. Even when it was, the lack of push-back or questioning was
startling. For example, this report from NBC News:
You almost have to appreciate the amount of discipline it takes to write two
back-to-back sentences like that without expressing even a hint of
skepticism: we have no evidence proving you're in danger, but you absolutely
should be very afraid!
It was an incredible turnaround from just a week before, even for the
American fear-mongering machine. Following the tragedy in Charleston, where
a white supremacist terrorist killed nine innocent churchgoers, there was -
finally! - widespread acknowledgement that the Islamic terrorism threat in
this country is vastly exaggerated, and that white supremacists actually
kill many more Americans than Muslim extremists do.
As Glenn Greenwald wrote at the time, you are more likely to be struck by
lightning, stung to death by bees or killed your own falling furniture on
you than you are by a Muslim terrorist. Yet there we were, less than a week
later, back to an "Isis is going to kill us all" mentality.
Bill Maher complained this weekend that, "Cable news is Isis' best ally."
And he's absolutely right. While CNN was by far the loudest and most idiotic
- the dildo-laden Isis flag at London's gay pride parade was only a
particularly laughable taste of the network's alarmism - all the cable news
channels have happily played along. Yet hardly any of the talking-head
"experts" bothered to ask whether our military's continued bombing of the
Middle East might be exacerbating the chances of a terrorist attack on US
soil, rather than dissipating it.
Journalist Adam Johnson went back a decade and found 40 other times the FBI
and Homeland Security have issued similar threats around national holidays
or major events, none of which actually was followed by a terrorist attack.
It's more than a little disturbing how much CNN and others have seemingly
grown to rely on these nebulous warnings to keep viewers hooked. As Johnson
quipped on Twitter earlier this week, "Can the FBI break its
terror-predicting 0-40 losing streak this weekend? Tune into CNN to find
out!"
All of this doesn't mean that a terrorist attack on US won't eventually
happen. Simple math tells us that, no matter the precautions taken or the
civil liberties taken away, one may get through. But it is a rare event, and
one which human beings have lived with throughout our history. By magnifying
it and terrifying everyone, we're only doing the terrorists' job for them.
No one is suggesting we ignore the existence of Isis. The savage attack on
civilians in Tunisia was a deplorable tragedy, and the group actively
threatens many people in the Middle East. But even as we mourn the victims
and steel our resolve, the idea that we should upend our way of life based
on an extremely remote possibility that we, in the end, have no ability to
control is absurd.
As for those vague terror warnings that didn't materialize over the weekend?
They've been extended.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
