How terrorists and tyrants do PR

“Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising,” observed the American writer Mark Twain. Unfortunately, this principle is known to terror groups and tyrants as much as it is to businesses that use high-flying public relations firms.

Terrorists of all types have long utilized the media for propaganda purposes—from the Irish Republican Army timing bombings to ensure they appeared on the nightly news to al-Qaeda’s exploitation of the Al-Jazeera news network during the second Iraq War. Indeed, as long-ago as 1987, the analyst and psychiatrist Dr. Jerrold Post was pointing out that many terror groups had what he called a “vice president for media relations,” tasked with orchestrating press coverage.