al Qaeda and Mainstream Media Hug It Out Together

As I mentioned earlier, al Qaeda is nothing without the mainstream American media to prop them up and help them win the hearts and minds of greater Marin County. But now it comes out that in the face of massive circulation decline, the mainstream American media is in bad shape without al Qaeda.

More ink equals more blood, claim two economists who say that newspaper coverage of terrorist incidents leads directly to more attacks. It's a macabre example of win-win in what economists call a "common-interest game," say Bruno S. Frey of the University of Zurich and Dominic Rohner of Cambridge University.

"Both the media and terrorists benefit from terrorist incidents," their study contends. Terrorists get free publicity for themselves and their cause. The media, meanwhile, make money "as reports of terror attacks increase newspaper sales and the number of television viewers." The results, they said, were unequivocal: 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.

Gee, thanks for the altruistic journalism, New York Times.