At a press conference today at the Ritz Carlton in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, President Obama warned the media not to empower terrorists. The terrorists, he said, are just “a bunch of killers with good social media.”
“[T]he message I have is that those of us who are charged with protecting the American people are going to do everything we can to destroy this particular network. Once this network is destroyed — and it will be — there may be others that pop up in different parts of the world, and so we’re going to have to continue to take seriously how we maintain the infrastructure that we’ve built to prevent this. But it doesn’t have to change the fundamental trajectory of the American people. And that we should feel confident about,” Obama said in response to a question about whether Americans should feel scared about ISIS.
“And the media needs to help in this. I just want to say — during the course of this week, a very difficult week, it is understandable that this has been a primary focus. But one of the things that has to happen is how we report on this has to maintain perspective, and not empower in any way these terrorist organizations or elevate them in ways that make it easier for them to recruit or make them stronger.
“They’re a bunch of killers with good social media. And they are dangerous, and they’ve caused great hardship to people. But the overwhelming majority of people who go about their business every day, the Americans who are building things, and making things, and teaching, and saving lives as firefighters and as police officers — they’re stronger. Our way of life is stronger. We have more to offer — we represent 99.9 percent of humanity. And that’s why we should be confident that we’ll win.”
