Via Allah, a new study purports to show a correlation between terror coverage and terror attacks. The Washington Post’s Richard Morin reports that according to the study, “Coverage caused more attacks, and attacks caused more coverage — a mutually beneficial spiral of death that they say has increased because of a heightened interest in terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001.”
I’m usually skeptical about studies like this, but common sense tells us that — regardless of whether coverage actually begets more terrorism — terrorist attacks that garner a lot of coverage are certainly more successful than those that are barely noticed. The point, after all, is to terrorize the public.
I will say that the solution proposed by one of the study’s co-authors — that “Nobody can be called a criminal — in our case a terrorist — if this has not been established by a court of law” — is more than a little preposterous. What should we call the perpetrators of 9/11? The alleged hijackers?