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| ISIS Soldiers in Iraq (wikipedia) |
Recently I
read an investigative story about ISIS terrorists practice of turning captured
Yazidi women* into sex slaves. The article was well written although the
revelation was unsurprising given the current situation; violent, energetic young
men with a penchant for beheadings are exactly the sort one would expect to be
involved in mass rape.
What was
more surprising is how nearly every major newspaper was soon
thereafter running
a similar article. This is what one might expect for an issue that is sudden
and prominent. The ISIS sex slave practice however was not very new and there
had doubtless been rumblings about long before the original article. What’s more the use of sex slaves is only one
of many sordid undertakings that warrant detailed examination.
In this case a little bit of depth and
attention in a key place caused a massive explosion in the established media
that saw far more readers exposed to the story. This suggests that by planting
one very particular tale in a key place-see Cecil the Lion-it is possible to dramatically
increase media exposure. Considering that seven billion of us spend copious
time thinking about a relatively small total number of public issues that it is
possible to spread or cover up any given issue based on controlling an initial
trigger like the original sex slaves investigation. Perhaps less important than
whither a secret leaks is whither anyone pays attention.
*I use the
term women here loosely as it seems that the terrorists were abusing Yazidi
females from a very young age.
