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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Because they wouldn't be 'sexy', a good terrorist attack plays the media as much as any other factor (number of people wounded/killed, timing and so on).

Killing people, especially in batches of 50 or so (sorry, that's not meant rude, just being analytical) is easy.

Doing it in a spectacular way ready for media consumption is very hard.

Terrorists have a real problem here. If they decided to simply butcher their way through humanity we'd have a much bigger problem.

See Algeria for what that world could look like.

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I have a hard time believing that the same country that spent an entire day watching a tin-foil balloon float around because it thought a boy was inside wouldn't have a total media freak out over a 'terrist'-linked mall shooting.

Same here, the media in this country is nuts. CNN droned on for hours about the truck in Times Square - with no new information! Isn't it supposed to be news? Wouldn't a scrolling update or a blurb at the top of each hour suffice? It actually makes it hard to find out if the situation has changed when the reporting never does. All the major news broadcasts are primarily there for the purpose of entertainment.

When you really think about it, nothing happened. There was a failed attempt, case closed.

A stickup of a convenience store 500 yards away killing two would have never gotten that kind of coverage.

Good point.

I think part of the fascination with the balloon incident was that it was about a child, and that there was speculation that it was a hoax and people tried to figure out on which side they came down. The parents did a pretty good job of predicting the public response, I'm surprised they didn't end up in jail for that trick. Let's hope none of their kids ever really gets lost because I'm sure the authorities will assume that it is just another grab for attention with possibly disastrous results. Don't cry 'wolf' when there is no wolf...

The media would most definitely freak out over a mall shooting, but mall shootings are not that rare today (right now google news has 650 items linked to that theme), especially if it involved guys in non western clothing.

But it would not be on the same level as 'shoe bomber tries to blow up airliner', at least I would think it wouldn't be.

If the terrorists really were simply out to kill you, which route would be more effective do you think? Blow up an airliner with a relatively small chance of success with a bomb straight out of some spy novel or to smuggle an armalite in to the local mall and let loose?

Can you see malls with body scanners in your future?

Schools with body scanners?

I'm sure the people selling that stuff would have their wet dreams come true if someone tried that.

In NL here we had a craze some years ago where some crazy injected a few oranges in a supermarket with mercury. The media took it and ran with it, causing all kinds of copycat incidents.

The funny thing is that mercury is relatively safe as a fluid, it is when it is in vapour form or when it is part of a reactive compound that the trouble begins.

That didn't stop an all out panic though, fueled by an uninformed media milking it for all it was worth.

I'm not sure that the country spent the entire day watching that particular event. The cable news stations did.

An entire day yes, but it very rapidly disappeared from the public consciousness. And it didn't change the behavior of government in the slightest (no anti-balloon legislation passed that I know of).

The DC sniper would be a good counterpoint to this. Single kills over a moderate period of time and it generated intense amounts of media coverage.

Yes, it was pretty 'sexy' media wise. Built in sequels.

As I said, Algeria is a good example of what happens when that sort of thing goes on all the time. People lose interest, try to ignore it.

If terrorism really becomes an every day occurrence it would stop to be news.

Look at Iraq, when stuff was blowing up all over the place people simply looked at the totals, the 'bodycounts', not the individual events. It became a statistics issue, but no longer a prime time news issue.

> Killing people, especially in batches of 50 or so ...is easy. Doing it in a spectacular way ready for media consumption is very hard

Depends on who those 50 people (or less) are. The attack on the Sri Lankan national cricket team bus in Pakistan was a type of terrorist escalation that Schneier didn't account for - celebrity.

Red carpets aren't guarded to the extent of presidents. Nor are most national sports teams (think Munich 1972) or Fortune 100 CEOs. Not a nice thought - but as you say, just being analytical.

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