Newspapers and media outlets the world over have been known to play down potentially important news when it suits them. When there is an Oil Spill in Louisiana, or a Government Defense contractor quietly, insidiously causing brain cancer in Florida, or even a bombing at a NAACP building in Colorado Springs. Somehow, these things get shoved under a multitude of pages in a newspaper, far removed from the front page or covered in a thirty-second blip on your local evening news channel.
The point is, when it comes to news, important pieces are often hidden below many reports of murder, government intransigence or foreign terrorism. When it comes to ISIS though, there is good argument for burying beheadings and terrorism suspect arrests under more optimistic reports of economic news and employment.
ISIS thrives off of bad press coverage. When they make international news, more recruits usually follow. Every time the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post or New York Times puts ISIS at the top of the front page, they are playing right into the hands of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his army of thugs.
News isn't going to make them go away, but it might make them stronger. If News outlets across the world refuse to play along, burying the Islamic State under news unrelated to the middle-east, IS loses one of it's main recruitment tools.
I'm not suggesting a complete media blackout, that would be absurd, but by placing less importance on ISIS and it's acts of attention seeking, we could potentially starve the group of one of its main goals. That goal being the attention of the world, and the world's disenfranchised peoples.
ISIS functions through the media. And the more attention it gets, the more outrageous its acts become. They use the media to fuel fear in the world. This fear, it hopes, will lead us into yet another long, drawn out war in the middle-east, further perpetuating the idea that the West is at war with Islam. This cycle of war and acts of depraved slaughter is how ISIS recruits new fighters to their cause.
As long as we put stock into the media that elevates the importance of ISIS and its impact on the world, they will continue to win this ideological war. They are very clever in realizing that the West and its free press just can't help themselves. We can't help but to read about ISIS, blog and tweet about them, talk and post on facebook about them. It's an urge we must resist if we really want to stop them from having an out-sized impact on our lives.
We must also resist being drawn into an all-out war with ISIS. Most of us realize that this is exactly what they want. It again feeds directly into their narrative about the West and its "War on Islam".
I think Obama understands this to a degree. He has repeatedly said that he would rather recruit regional forces to fight this war. But if he wishes to have any hope of winning, he will need to stick with his guns about not placing boots on the ground. This is one war that can be won by not fighting it. Ignoring their importance will slowdown the exodus of young Muslims trying to join ISIS and weaken their very ideology, which only exists as long as we are fighting it. Most of us can see now that ISIS wouldn't even exist if we hadn't invaded Iraq. And think of the countless people who have joined Al-Queda since the war on terrorism began.
I believe we can stop ISIS. And I believe we can do it by employing regional forces while largely staying out of this one. Furthermore, if we can petition the news media to stop placing such importance on every beheading video and every ridiculous, attention seeking depraved act by the IS, there largest advertising source just goes away. We must ask ourselves, is the drama of the state of affairs in Iraq and Syria worth the risk of further empowering the Islamic State?