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Farah Akbar is a New York-based writer who has contributed to Gotham Gazette, Islamonline.net, Al-Ahram Weekly and Salon.com.

The world is full of attention-hungry individuals willing to do just about anything for fame. Terry Jones got it, and frankly, he did not even have to do much. A provocative threat from him wrapped the media around his finger for days.

His distasteful plan to burn Qurans on the ninth anniversary of September 11 at an obscure church had the media obsessed about him, as teenyboppers are about Justin Bieber.

Jones, a radical, fringe Christian with less than 50 followers, wound up having a change of heart. His only claim to fame before this was a hateful book he wrote that has only six reviews on Amazon.com, most of which are negative. And besides his title of pastor, what authority or influence does he have when it comes to matters of religion?

But if Jones had followed through on his pledge to burn Islam's holy book, the results could have been disastrous. Many Muslims perceive any insult toward their revered book as an attack on their faith. The Daily Star, an English-language paper in Lebanon, said that if the event were to have taken place, it was "likely to ignite a fire of rage that could consume swaths of the globe." Demonstrations against the burning took place in Pakistan, Gaza, Indonesia and Afghanistan.

His cheap attempt at getting attention trumped important news, such as the devastating floods that have ravaged much of Pakistan. Aren't there individuals on the planet who are actually making a positive difference in the lives of others who would have been more worthy of that attention?

How could this situation, with the potential to have had very damaging effects here and elsewhere been avoided? Simple -- don't let obscure people, whose actions have the potential to incite violence, dominate the news cycle.