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Hi everyone. Hope you're having a good Monday morning. Ready for a little terror talk?

Much of the coverage of the alleged plot to bomb the fuel pipeline supplying John F. Kennedy airport has stressed the "chilling and terrifying," "scary," and "very very frightening" nature of the plot, as Brian Stetler documented over at TVNewser. The Daily News, trying to squeeze as much juice as possible from the story, today put on its cover the tale of a Brooklyn waitress who served "the accused mastermind" – turns out that "Evil Ate At Table Eight!" And it didn't even tip!

I know, I know, I'm being flip. But someone needs to be: Much of the media have gone into classic scaremongering mode, and Public Eye is here for your daily dose of sanity.

First off, the caveat: I'm not trying to argue that we shouldn't take this kind of thing seriously. Of course we should. But these sorts of plots are now a sad fact of life. Instead of going out of its way to scare people every time a new one gets exposed, the press corps should look at the facts and provide some perspective. "Chilling and terrifying," in other words, doesn't quite cut it.

So, here are some things to keep in mind: Authorities were aware of the threat from the beginning. The plotters had no explosives and no date for the attack, and were a long was from being able to set one. Had the attack actually taken place, the damage would have been significant, but the loss of lives likely would not have been.

That doesn't mean this wasn't a serious threat. But it does mean we were not on the cusp of a major terrorist attack.

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The foiled transatlantic terror plot is getting a tremendous amount of attention from news outlets everywhere. Even those who aren’t typically news junkies are likely flipping on cable news or checking news Web sites during the day more than they otherwise would. So, how does that affect the way the network evening newscasts report the story?

“We’ve got to be guided totally by the facts,” said correspondent Bob Orr, who handles the aviation beat for CBS News and is one of those covering the foiled terror plot story. “There’s always pressure to match or beat the competition,” which includes cable news. “The challenge [for the evening newscasts] is to take all the information that’s out there, and distill it to something that’s factual and clear and put in proper context.”

According to Orr, the ability to add such context is an advantage the network broadcasts have over cable. “When you’re covering something in real time,” as cable networks are, said Orr, “There’s a lot of flack, a lot of coverage of the hot button issue of the moment. I think it’s tough for those outlets to editorially police what they’re saying” as events are unfolding on the air.

That cable news provides a continual flow of developing information throughout the day for news-hungry viewers, however, indeed poses a challenge for the evening newscasts -- to provide something unique. “The challenge for us is that the raw material has been out there, so by the time the ‘Evening News’ rolls around, [the audience] has seen a lot of the stuff. So we have to bring another dimension to it, one that hasn’t been exploited yet.”

UPDATE: Correspondent Sheila MacVicar, who has been covering the thwarted terror plot from London, adds some more thoughts about her approach to the story and its challenges.

“Stories like this are suddenly in front of you, and require immediate response. There's usually not a lot of time before you have to get on the air and start reporting what you know, when you know it. It's constantly rolling. In this case, I was actually on my way to Heathrow early in the morning to catch a flight for another assignment. I heard the news, the first reports, which begin with the words 'We are just hearing…' and immediately diverted. I've covered terrorism and terrorism-related issues for more than a decade, and that depth of knowledge is enormously helpful in trying to sort out what's real from what's not."

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"TUNNEL BOMB PLOT" trumpeted the New York Daily News this morning on its cover, the words printed in big bold white letters against a black background. Jihadists, said the paper, had a "serious" plot to flood lower Manhattan by bombing the Holland Tunnel, "to drown the Financial District as New Orleans was by Hurricane Katrina."

Frightening? Sure. "Serious?" Well, the jury is still out. The "largely aspirational" plot never went beyond e-mails, there was no credible link to Al Qaeda, and there was no specific mention of the Holland Tunnel, just the mass transit system more generally; additionally, sources say "no one in the United States ever took part in the Internet conversations and…no one ever purchased any explosives or scouted the transit system."

The plot as the Daily News conceived it seemed absurd enough that one would have thought it would have given editors pause – how does one flood lower Manhattan via the Holland Tunnel, seeing as the island is above the level of the river? But that didn't stop the paper from rushing its inaccurate story into print and trumpeting it with BIG BOLD LETTERS, and it didn't stop other news organizations from turning the alleged plot into a huge story. That's no surprise, of course. When people speak of bias in the press, they tend to talk abut political bias, but the more serious bias is towards sensationalism, which tends to sell better. (It's safe to say the Daily News moved a few more copies this morning than usual.)

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