What would happen if — on Saturday — this clown holds his Koran-burning event on Saturday and nobody showed up?
Let the closed-minded little cretin and his lemmings burn their books. But the magnitude of their actions would be diminished greatly if we could talk all sane-minded media people everywhere to simply ignore their sorry asses.
To simply not cover it.
Think of it. Nothing at all on the 11 o’clock news that night. Nothing at all in regional or national newspapers the next day. Nothing on page one and nothing in the briefs.
Nothing at all about it on Fox News or CNN or NPR. Nothing at all about it on the internet, on Facebook or on Twitter. Nothing in the blogosphere.
Sure, there would be some folks who’d break our embargo. But let ‘em. Perhaps that’s the only coverage this event gets: When we run follow-up stories early next week spanking the irresponsible outlets that ran something anyway. Because giving this man and his event coverage this weekend is surely as irresponsible as holding the event in the first place.
What kind of an impact would this kind of embargo have?
I’m just wondering.
I used to make this argument with bomb threats all the time. As long as there was no publicity, there was no reason for someone to continue those. But all it took was an editor or two to start blathering about “covering everything,” and that was the end of the sensible approach.
Now we have school threats, which cannot be ignored because of evacuations, angry parents, etc. Of course, now any time someone wants to avoid finals, that person can just leave a note in the john, and the panic ensues. The school cannot ignore the threat in case it is viable.
In this case, I think if he burns these books in a public setting, then it should be covered. An angry response is better than covering our ears.
Charles,
The question isn’t whether or not the press covers the event, it’s how we cover the bigger issue.
People are going to show up. That’s a given.
So I think a more practical response would be for thousands of counter-demonstrators to show up to give speeches and demonstrations of interfaith peace.
Wenalway says a kid can avoid finals by leaving a threatening note in the bathroom. Well, there was an airline flight this week that caused a stink because someone left a bomb threat note in the lavatory. Unfortunately, the note was found too late — whoever left it wasn’t able to avoid the flight.
Seriously, though, I agree with Damon. Sometimes we miss the bigger picture because we see things day by day, like baby steps. Not always a good thing, whether it’s resentment of a religious movement, the growth of government, or why anyone should care about the Kardashians or Jersey Shore (they shouldn’t).
It’s a good question. Kind of like this one: If everyone just ignored a certain insanely-negative hater/flamer/stalker who constantly attacks designers on comment boards but has no interest in a constructive dialogue, would he just go away? Unfortunately, we’ll never know the answer, since it’s impossible to get everyone to show that kind of collective restraint. Too bad.
I hate these “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situations. If we cover it, we just feed the flames. If we don’t, were accused of pushing a left-wing/right-wing agenda (depending on your political bent).
Mypitts has the the right idea. Earlier this year, the Westboro Baptist Church (the ones who picket outside soldiers’ funeral waving signs with such subtle messages as “God hates fags” on them) planned to demonstrate outside the Virginia Holocaust Museum and a couple other locations around Richmond. I don’t think they were prepared, though, for the number of demonstrators who showed in protest. The church’s presence galvanized the community, and in the end church protesters were vastly outnumbered by counter-demonstrators.
While local media, including the paper, were reluctant to cover the protests, I don’t think so many counter-demonstrators would have show up without it. Once our stories and those of the local media hit the Twitterverse the groundswell against the group began and snowballed from there.
Paul:
I don’t see any references to design in my post. In fact, I refer to editors who pushed for coverage of mere bomb threats.
In one case, I think one of them was an AME of presentation. His problem in that instance was not one of design, though.
Thanks for pointing out whatever else you were pointing out, though.
Just as this one man and a small group of people have shown their hatred and ignorance, the prolific coverage of what amounts to a bunch of nobodies is only fueling hatred and ignorance in the other direction. Now we have violence breaking out over this: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/11/world/asia/11afghan.html?ref=global-home.
I understand that in the age of the internet it’s pretty much impossible to ignore this story, but so much more context could have been provided. Even the coverage in the paper I work for has given this too much play and not said enough about how miniscule the group is, as well as how many Americans have spoken out against this man. It makes me sick to look at how out-of-hand this has gotten.
This could have been the perfect time to learn more about and appreciate Islam with Eid, the most important holiday of the year for Muslims, just beginning, but instead we spend our time regressing by giving this idiot a whole lot of air time.