Reporting of Extreme Terrorist Incidents

“Terrorists, like governments, try to use the media to get their ideas across” –
Richard Perle, former chairman of US Defense Policy Board

Since the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington there has been a rise in the number of terrorist incidents, most notably Beslan and Madrid. In the age of 24-hour news, this has posed fresh challenges for journalists, including the threat of terrorist manipulation.

US strategist Richard Perle said journalists must beware of possible manipulation by terrorists. “Terrorists, like governments, try to use the media to get their ideas across,” he said, urging journalists to be as sensitive to terrorist manipulation as they were to government pressure.

Taking part in a lively debate on the ethics of reporting extreme terrorist action, Perle, former Chairman of the US Defense Policy Board and former Assistant Secretary of Defense, said governments had little or no control over the flow of news, given modern communications.

“Governments, like reporters covering horrifying events, seldom know much at the outset. Initial facts are not well understood and are frequently wrong. Governments have little influence on how events are covered,” he said.

“What is important is not so much how journalists relate to governments but how they relate to their own conscience. They must set their own standards of truth.” The ultimate standard, Perle said, was that journalism must not be allowed to put lives at risk.

“As a matter of policy, we (in the US) do not even try to hide the ugliest of incidents. We do, from time to time, ask for restraint from people covering them,” he added.

Several speakers agreed on the risk of media manipulation by terrorists and the need for experienced journalists to exercise judgment and self-restraint. Some delegates called for better cooperation on the ground between the authorities and the media.

Session chairman Nik Gowing, BBC World TV main presenter, said terrorists and insurgents were now part of the ‘media matrix’ – putting journalists under acute pressure in times of crisis.

“We in the media act as the voice and eyes and the bearing of witness in major events. There is an acute pressure in a time of crisis,” he said.

Jonathan Charles, a BBC foreign correspondent, said he would never use anything on air that might endanger the lives of hostages and would always resist official pressure to put out inaccurate information, as happened during the Beslan hostage siege in Russia last September.

“The need for restraint is quite obvious. You should always tell the media what they are going to find out anyway,” he said, adding that not doing this would damage official credibility and any control officials may think they had over a situation…

“We always have to source things but are aware that there is going to be manipulation not only from the authorities but also from hostage-takers. We have to be aware that there is going to be major manipulation… Everyone is trying to use us for their own purposes. Our job is not to be used,” said Charles, who covered the 2004 Beslan siege.

He said it was not impossible to envisage at the next such siege that the captors would ask to be live on air. “I can imagine a situation where hostage-takers say we want to be live on air now otherwise… Next time we could see the first live execution.”

Returning to media-government relations, Michael Golden, Publisher of the International Herald Tribune, said: “If you try to manipulate the news you undermine your credibility, whether you are media or government.”

Golden, also Vice-Chairman of the New York Times Company, said that his publications were guided by a set of principles on what they would print in text and pictures.

“If is extreme, we will not show it. In Iraq, some private US security people were beaten and killed. We showed them hanging from a bridge to raise local consciousness in the US. We do not show beheadings and things that are simply too graphic,” he said.

Boris Reznik, committee member of the Russian parliament, said it was right that journalists were not restricted by law from doing their job as they saw best, but they should not disclose news about, for example, special forces getting ready to stage a hostage rescue operation.

“The only imperative is to save lives. To my mind, not every journalist is capable of acting in extreme situations.” he said.

Mithat Bereket, Chief International Editor of Turkey’s NTV Channel, agreed that no news was worth a human life. He called for greater cooperation in times of crisis between the authorities and the media: “Banning media coverage is not an answer.”

“Instead of trying to control information, governments should try to cooperate with the media. We are witnessing a new sort of war with two sides – government and the press. At the bottom line, every government tries to control information,” he said.

Vitaliy Tretyakov, Editor-in-Chief of ‘Political Class’ magazine of Russia, said the media must be seen to try to help save the lives of hostages: “This is the cornerstone, rather than the needs of the media.”

“There is a feeling in Russia that if something like another Beslan or theatre siege happened on Russian territory that it would be best to close it to the media. I do not exclude such a possibility,” he said.

“Unfortunately, in Russia, we have had such awful and very long sieges. Who can predict whether this sort of thing will happen in Germany, the UK or the US?

“Every terrorist act is different but there is a need to control the situation. There is no universal answer but the most important thing is to save the lives of those involved in terrorist acts. All people should have an understanding that we should take care of the hostages,” Tretyakov said.