As we near the second anniversary (in weeks, that is) of the killing of Osama bin Laden, the flood of news coverage seems to be increasing by the day. That’s a welcome development, given the potentially seismic shifts that it will likely cause in the global war on terrorism and in the United States’ relationship with front-line states such as Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The fire hose of coverage is also welcome in that it proves that national security journalism is more robust than ever, even if it is barely recognizable from what constituted “the media’’ a decade or even a few years ago.
Those thirsting for information about bin Laden’s death — and his capture, his plots and plans, even his sad and sorry life holed up in Abbottabad — have virtually thousands of places to go to for news and analysis. The mainstream media has done a good job of “moving the ball’’ on all aspects of the subject, thanks in large part to an Obama administration, CIA and military that seem happy to be parceling out little scooplets of information. Some of the best coverage has come from foreign news organizations, including some excellent coverage from journalists in South Asia and elsewhere who have long followed Bin Laden and his leadership of Al Qaeda.
But even more noteworthy is the massive amount of coverage from literally hundreds of bloggers and experts at think thanks, many of them former national security officials who have had some interesting and provocative things to say. Given the public’s voracious appetite for all things bin Laden, all of these new media journalists and pundits now enjoy a potentially huge audience, thanks to search engine technology that brings up their offerings if the right keywords are entered into Google, and links from social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. And then there are all of the regular citizens weighing in themselves via Facebook and Twitter.
The cacophony of voices is a good thing, even if there is no quality control over what passes for news and analysis these days.
What’s more important is that it is getting the audience thinking about—and debating—important issues like whether Al Qaeda can survive without a charismatic leader like Bin Laden, whether the United States should continue giving so much money to Pakistan and whether Washington should hasten its withdrawal from Afghanistan and allow the Taliban to play a role in that country’s future.
A week ago, a review of the U.S. media by the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that the mainstream news media had stayed focused on the news in the immediate aftermath of bin Laden’s death, not moving to political ramifications or analysis. The report used computer technology that examined more than 120,000 news stories, 100,000 blog posts, and 6.9 million posts on Twitter or Facebook from May 1 through May 4. Based on that analysis, it concluded that the death of Bin Laden was, by far, the biggest news story since it began keep track in January 2007 in terms of resources spent and stories written. It also found that the attention given to the event in both traditional and new media was mostly focused on the facts, and only nominally focused on the political ramifications of the uber-terrorist’s death.
An updated version of that report has found that while the actual take down of bin Laden remains the dominant focus, the second biggest storyline has been coverage of the political implications of the event followed by the role of Pakistan and its impact on U.S.-Pakistan relations. Then came the implications for future terrorism and national security.
The PEJ report is quick to note that the coverage of this event is evolving almost daily, and that the media—in all its forms—is busy exploring new angles. That is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, which can only be a good thing. On a huge story like this, the more the better.
Josh Meyer of the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative covered terrorism and national security—including the rise of Bin Laden and al Qaeda—for the Los Angeles Times from 2000 to 2010.
