Terrorism and the print media: The 1985 twa hostage crisis

Terrorists are said to seek the attention of the public, the recognition of their grievances, and even respectability and legitimacy. This paper examines the question, to what extent do the mass media facilitate these goals? Analyzing the coverage of the 1985 TWA hostage crisis by three leading U.S. newspapers, we found that the press facilitated the attention‐getting desires of the terrorists very generously. The terrorists were also quite successful in getting their causes and grievances reported, while they had only limited success in gaining coverage that might have helped their efforts to gain respectability and legitimacy.