Abstract Because the essence of terrorism is to produce a psychological impact far greater than its physical impact, the relationship of contemporary international terrorism with the news media has often been called symbiotic, with publicity described as the oxygen on which terrorism lives. Although this view is in many respects true, it over-simplifies a more ambiguous, varied and complex reality, and in any case, the policy options open to Western democratic governments in limiting this ‘oxygen’ are very limited both normatively and pragmatically. Equally important, but attracting much less scholarly and popular attention, is the news media's role in the problematic politics of counterterrorism. Here the attraction of heroic narratives to both media and governments – for their own different reasons – creates coincidences of interest. Powerful metaphors such as the war on terror encourage strategies which may be substantially ineffective, perhaps even counter-productive, while politically benefiting the governments adopting them.