MEDIA ROLE AS NEUTRAL OBSERVERS QUESTIONED IN WAR ON TERROR
Traditional role of media as neutral observers was questioned Wed. night at forum on whether role should change in response to campaign to stem global terrorism. Panelists generally agreed at National Press Club event organized by Public Relations Society of America that media and terrorists often fed on each other. However, panel disagreed whether news organizations should show restraint in covering acts of terror and disseminating terrorist messages.
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Likelihood that terrorists will succeed in carrying out devastating cyberattacks or using weapons of mass destruction should serve as reminder to media to rethink their positions as objective bystanders, said Yonah Alexander, dir., Potomac Institute’s International Center for Terrorism Studies. Considering that terrorism threatens “every country, every community around the world,” it makes sense to resist “exploitation of media” as part of broader war on terror, he said: “Every segment of our society can and should play a role, including the media.”
News groups that insist on maintaining absolute objectivity but “without editorial intervention” serve as “uncritical megaphones” for terrorists, said George Washington U. Political Psychology Program Dir. Jerrold Post. He said al Jazeera’s most recent airing of audio tape by al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden “served as a recruitment tool” for new members of terrorist organization.
Modern media also draw attention to radicals who carry out violent acts in name of religion rather than simply seeking to raise global profile of their agendas, he said. Terrorists in 1970s and early 1980s typically avoided mass casualties to ensure maximum publicity while attempting to generate support for their causes, which isn’t always case today, he said. With rise in Islamic terrorism, there’s less need for such extremists “to have that CNN story or New York Times headline because they did it in the name of God, and God already knew.” He said that explained why often no one claimed responsibility for attacks, or else multitude of unlikely suspects competed to take credit.
Efforts to control media coverage should be avoided, said Council on Foreign Relation Senior Fellow Lawrence Korb: “I think it’s foolish to try to do that.” He denounced efforts by President Bush’s National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice to dissuade news organizations from airing tapes of bin Laden. Korb, former Asst. Defense Secy. in Reagan Administration, said in some ways he was troubled by war on terrorism, which Bush has transformed into “war on evil.” He said subsequent news coverage “has taken on sort of a life of its own… A lot of things that happened before [such as interstate conflicts] now get put under the rubric of terrorism.”
Al Jazeera Washington Bureau Chief Hafez Al Mirazi said media “should be responsible” in their coverage of terrorists. However, he said news organizations shouldn’t let one party over another influence direction of that coverage. Rice’s public exhortation to media to refrain from airing tapes of bin Laden, which she claimed had “coded messages” containing orders for al Qaeda members, was “propaganda,” he said.
Despite criticism of al Jazeera’s broadcasting of several bin Laden tapes, Arab satellite TV group has drawn line on what it deems acceptable for broadcast. For example, al Jazeera decided to edit out 4 min. of bin Laden’s recent tape because it included directions to carry out violence, he said: “This was not propaganda. Those were instructions” to kill.