9/11 and News Reporting on Jihadist Terrorism

By Jeffrey Imm

Five years after 9/11 - the mainstream media refuses to consistently report who is at war with USA and the world and why. And at best, only 10% of the news on Jihadist terrorism is reaching the American public on a regular basis. In America, the battle for the minds of the public to understand the Jihadist threat continues to be lost due to conscious efforts of the mainstream media to not report or under-report the news about Jihadist terrorism.

I have been collecting news on Jihadist terrorism every day for the past 4 years on a series of websites, but mostly on a news group for UnitedStatesAction.com, and for Counterterrorism Blog for the past year - scanning an average of 30 news sources per day for reports of Jihadist terrorism. When I first got started in September 2002, I found around 2000 stories per year by September 2003. By September 2004, this increased to 6400 stories per year, and by September 2005, this was 5460 stories per year. By September 2006, this is well over 7000 stories per year. Look for yourself on the website with these stories.

For the past year, September 2005 to September 2006, for the 7000 Jihadist terrorist stories, the titles, weblinks, and few word description alone for the stories on Jihadist terrorism represent nearly 900 pages - it is highly improbable that most Americans have seen or heard even 10% of these stories.

How many of these stories are actually reported by the mainstream media and television news? And by "reporting", I don't mean a small paragraph buried on "page A40" of the Washington Post or Internet news wire services. And this also doesn't include doctored "news" photos by terrorist sympathesizers in Reuters or other news organizations to make Jihadist terrorist groups seem like "victims".

Lets be "optimistic" - and assume that the mainstream media and television news actually REPORTS an average of two terrorist stories per day: 712 stories. Then based on just the news stories I have found in the past year since the last anniversary of 9/11, the majority of the American public is only hearing about 10% of the news about Jihadist terrorism.

And we wonder why many Americans are in a state of denial regarding Jihadist terrorism? The "shaped" reality by the mainstream media is that such Jihadist terrorism as a global threat - simply does not exist. The mainstream media and television news reports focus on Iraq and Afghanistan - reporting a small fraction of the news of the Jihadist threat.

The ongoing near daily Jihadist terrorism stories in India, Indonesia, Israel, Thailand, Pakistan, Phillipines, Morocco, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, etc., are barely, if ever "reported" by the mainstream media and television news. Even with dead bodies in the streets or bombs in the hands of such terrorists, Jihadist terrorism is vastly under-reported about in such areas by the mainstream media. Do Americans know of the thousands of people in India and in Indian Kashmir, who have died due to terrorism attacks?

The consistent stories of Jihadist threats in UK, Germany, France, Europe, and the rest of the world also are vastly under-reported as well. The British Jihadist attempt to hijack 10 jetliners to kill untold THOUSANDS of Americans? To the USA mainstream media, it is "old news" -- less than a month after the first arrests. The latest political debates and the latest celebrity gossip is a greater priority to the mainstream media than an attempt at a disaster much worse than 9/11.

So in considering this 9/11 anniversary, and how much still needs to change to protect Americans, we need to keep in focus the fact that one of the reasons why so little has changed is because the American public -- five years after 9/11 -- is still woely uninformed by the mainstream media on Jihadist terrorism. The valiant efforts of numerous bloggers to try to the "fill the vacuum" are laudible - but they don't change a fundamental fact - that untold MILLIONS of Americans still have no concept about the Jihadist world war, because the mainstream media refuses to effectively report the news about it.

What the mainstream media is comfortable with is treating the Jihadist terrorist threat as "history" - as we will see this weekend as 9/11 attacks from five years ago are regurgitated. But the latest attempt by British Jihadists to kill many thousands of Americans, the latest bombing in Pakistan, Philippines, India, Israel, etc? The latest activities by Jihadists in Europe and other parts of the world? Don't expect to hear about that - after all, that is "news" about the current and continuing Jihadist terror threat.

Regarding "history", however, the mainstream media should be looking at the history of its own reporting on Jihadist terrorism. On August 23, 1996, when Osama Bin Laden made his first declaration of war on the USA - the mainstream media news story was the "War on Tobacco" by President Clinton. On February 23, 1998, when Osama Bin Laden made his second declaration of war on the USA - the mainstream media news story was "Starr Searches for Source of Staff Criticism" regarding the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. When did mainstream media like the Washington Post report the 1998 Bin Laden declaration of war? September 21, 2001 - 10 days AFTER 3,000 Americans were killed by Bin Laden's Al Qaeda - and of course 3 years after it was news. What has changed? What has the media learned? Obviously nothing.

If there was only one issue that we could fix about America's security in this latest anniversary of 9/11 attacks - it would be to get the public INFORMED about the GLOBAL Jihadist terrorist threat. Because as long as most of the public is only getting 10% of the news about Jihadist terrorism, the terrorists are WINNING. And winning big time.

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