Press coverage of Islamic State atrocities is responsible for boosting the terrorist group’s global image and blowing the threat out of proportion, President Obama suggested in an interview that aired Monday.
The president’s remarks came during a year-end interview with Steve Inskeep, the host of National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition.”
“I think what’s fair is that post-Paris you had a saturation of news about the horrible attack there,” he said, referring to a major Islamic terrorist attack last month in the French capital, which claimed the lives of 130 people.
“And [the Islamic State] combines viciousness with very savvy media operations,” he added. “And as a consequence, if you’ve been watching television for the last month, all you have been seeing, all you have been hearing about is these guys with masks or black flags who are potentially coming to get you.”
Terrorists launched several coordinated attacks on Paris in November, killing 130 and injuring dozens more. Two radicalized jihadis later shot and killed 14 people in a California-run facility for persons with mental disabilities.
As a result, the White House has scrambled in the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., to reassure Americans that it has the threat under control.
Inskeep kept at it, pressing the president to explain exactly what he meant by media saturation.
“You referred to [the Islamic State’s] sophisticated media operation and also referred to what Americans are seeing in the American media. Are you suggesting that the media are being played in a sense here?” the NPR host asked, referring to previous comments made by the president.
Obama responded, saying, “Look, the media is pursuing ratings,” although he quickly added, “this is a legitimate news story.”
“I think that, you know, it’s up to the media to make a determination about how they want to cover things. There is no doubt that the actions of ISIL are designed to amplify their power and the threat that they pose,” he said.
He said the terrorist group calculates how its attacks will raise its profile, explaining that this allows the Islamic State to increase its recruitment numbers.
“And so I think that the American people absorb that, understandably are of concern,” the president said.
The president made sure to stress in the more than 30-minute interview that it’s important to keep the threat of the Islamic State in “perspective.”
“This is not a huge industrial power that can pose great risks to us institutionally or in a systematic way,” he said, comparing the Islamic State to former American foes, including the Soviet Union.
“But they can hurt us, and they can hurt our people and our families,” he said. “So I understand why people are worried.”
“[B]ut what is important is for people to recognize that the power, the strength of the United States and its allies are not threatened by an organization like this; in the same way that al Qaeda was able to carry out one spectacular attack, we ended up making some significant changes to harden homeland defenses,” he said.
He concluded, “It then took awhile for us to ultimately snuff out core al Qaeda in the [Federally Administered Tribal Areas], and there are still lingering remnants, but at no point was there ever a sense that in fact it could do catastrophic damage to us.”
The White House’s handling of the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino has been criticized as nonchalant and lacking urgency, and Obama is working now to address this unflattering image.
In a now-deleted paragraph from a Dec. 17 New York Times report, Obama reportedly conceded in a private meeting with columnists that he had badly judged Americans’ anxieties over terrorist attacks.
“Mr. Obama indicated that he did not see enough cable television to fully appreciate the anxiety after the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, and made clear that he plans to step up his public arguments,” the deleted paragraph read. “Republicans were telling Americans that he is not doing anything when he is doing a lot, he said.”
The Times removed the 60-word account of Obama’s comments on television without adding any editor’s note or explanation for why the passage was deleted.
The paper later explained in a statement to the Washington Examiner’s media desk that the section was removed for the purpose of trimming the article’s length.
The original version of the Times report contained approximately 1,240 words. The updated, “trimmed” version contains approximately 1,377 words.
