Obama criticizes media's saturated coverage of terror attacks for amplifying fear about IS threat

U.S. President Barack Obama criticized the U.S. media's saturated coverage of recent terror attacks by Islamic State (IS) for whipping up the public's fear about the group's threat.

"Well, I think what's fair is that post-Paris you had a saturation of news about the horrible attack there. And ISIL combines viciousness with very savvy media operations," Obama said in an interview released Monday.

"And as a consequence, if you've been watching television for the last month, all you have been seeing, all you have been hearing about is these guys with masks or black flags who are potentially coming to get you," Obama said in the wide-ranging interview taped Thursday with the NPR News.

ISIL is an acronym used by Obama for IS, which has claimed responsibility for the massive terror attacks on Nov. 13 in Paris, France, that killed 130 people, and a shooting attack on Dec. 2 in San Bernardino, California, which killed 14 people.

U.S. investigators believe that the married couple in the San Bernardino shooting was radicalized by IS to launch the attack.

While admitting that the media has a right to decide how to cover the news of the terror attacks because it "is pursuing ratings," Obama cautioned that the IS actions "are designed to amplify their power and threat" through such news coverage.

"That helps them recruit, that adds in the twisted thoughts of some young person that they might want to carry out an action, that somehow they're part of a larger movement. And so I think that the American people absorb that, understandably are of concern," Obama said.

The U.S. president added that though the U.S. is facing a serious situation fighting IS, "what is important is for people to recognize that the power, the strength of the United States and its allies are not threatened by an organization like this."

He took the terror group al-Qaida as an example, saying that it could not do catastrophic damage to the U.S. now although there are still lingering remnants.

Al-Qaida was responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks in New York and Washington D.C. that killed more than 3,000 people. The U.S. retaliated by launching a protracted war in Afghanistan to root out al-Qaida, whose mastermind Osama bin Laden was killed in a secret U.S. military special operation in Pakistan in 2011.

Responding to a question about the criticism of his strategy in fighting IS, he insisted that the fight has made steady progress by conducting sustained bombings and taking back some areas controlled by the terror group.

Obama defended his decisions not to send U.S. troops to combat IS militants on the ground while conducting precision bombings in a controlled manner to avoid more loss of civilian lives.

"And we are going after ISIL effectively. We are going after them hard. And we are confident that we are going to prevail," he said.

Obama called for patience for his strategy to work, which he said aims to achieve a "sustained defeat" of IS by helping local forces develop capacity and create a stable government structure in the region.

Acknowledging that IS is more systematic and more effective in media manipulation and online presence that could inspire more terror attacks in the U.S. soil like the one in San Bernardino, Obama said his administration will "ramp up countering that narrative online, working with local communities to prevent young Americans from IS recruitment."

Asked to predict the outcome of the 2016 presidential race, Obama, a Democrat, said he was confident that a Democrat candidate will win the White House again, and that the Democrats will win back the Senate.

Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State during Obama's first term, is currently the front-runner among the Democratic Party candidates for the 2016 presidential race. Endit