Exhibit A, the dangers of objectivity:
Reuters, which describes itself as the world’s largest news and television agency, has taken a major step backward in its quest for journalistic excellence, having recently instructed its reporters and editors not to use the word “terrorist.” Explains the agency’s global news head, Stephen Jukes, in an internal memo to staff: “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. We abstain from judgment and believe the word ‘terrorist’ is a loaded term.”
Loaded it is, but with good reason. The dictionary defines terrorism as “the systematic use of terror as a means of coercion.” Those who blow themselves up in the hopes of killing as many people as possible, and by so doing, instill fear in and thus weaken society, are terrorists in my book. What would Reuters call the 19 hijackers who killed thousands at the World Trade Center and Pentagon? “Disgruntled demonstrators?”
Journalists are so concerned about appearing objective they sometimes obscure the very facts they are striving to present. The Reuters case is but the latest example of a serious problem with media coverage, particularly of conflicts like the al-Aksa intifada. In emphasizing the need to “abstain from judgment,” as Jukes did, reporters and editors run the very real risk of distorting the truth by shunning any attempt to place facts in perspective, which should be a priority.
“We’re there to tell the story,” Jukes said the other day. “We’re not there to evaluate the moral case.”
“Just the facts, ma’am,” as Jack Webb used to say in his deadpan voice on “Dragnet.” But in telling the story fully and accurately, there is a difference between taking sides and presenting them fairly.
One of the lessons I’ve learned from the current intifada, which recently marked its first bloody anniversary, is there is no such thing as objective truth. We can’t agree on how or why the violence started, what it represents, and what constitutes terrorism.
The American and Israeli versions of the genesis of this intifada was that after rejecting Ehud Barak’s generous peace proposal at Camp David in the summer of 2000, Yasser Arafat opted for violence to achieve his goals. That view went unchallenged for many months, until Palestinians and some diplomats asserted that the offer to Arafat was less munificent than had been reported.
Even if true, the revisionist position fails to explain why Arafat made no counteroffer or then violated the foundation of the Oslo accords by resorting to violence rather than negotiations to resolve his differences with the Israelis.
The original Palestinian assertion that the intifada resulted from Ariel Sharon’s provocative stroll to the Temple Mount last Sept. 28, widely reported still as the cause of the violence, has been disproved by several top Palestinian officials, who subsequently acknowledged that the outbreak had been planned.
And while Arafat supports the young men who blow themselves up, killing dozens of Israeli men, women and children, he also argues that he should be included in the U.S. anti-terror coalition because, he asserts, the Palestinians are resisting Israel’s “state-sponsored terror” on a daily basis.
This distortion and destruction of language must be noted and exposed. Doing away with a word, like “terrorist,” does not undo the murderous deeds associated with it.
Even the camera lies — or at least distorts. Remember the tragic footage of the 12-year-old Palestinian boy caught in the crossfire between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian demonstrators last fall? His death seemed to symbolize the victimization of young Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli military machine. But as the facts emerged and were put in perspective, it became clear that youngsters were being put on the front lines as fodder for the cameras, as well as Israeli soldiers, in an inverted war waged not to inflict but to suffer high casualties and thus gain international sympathy.
Much has been written here and elsewhere about the lack of moral relativism in covering this conflict, about the media equating Palestinian attacks on Jewish civilians with Israel’s restrained, limited responses against military targets, often buildings. Such reporting is not exemplary journalism; it is dishonest journalism. It does not shed light on the situation; it darkens the truth.
Those who advocated for the Oslo accords have come to see their mistake in focusing so much on the goal that they ignored the violations along the way: the refusal of the Palestinian Authority to prepare its people for peace. In fact, Arafat did the opposite, disseminating and stirring up hatred of Jews and Israel through textbooks, speeches and sermons. But too many journalists bent on a peace agreement, or championing the alleged underdog, negligently continue to overlook the fact that it is the Palestinians, in the name of resistance, who instigated, provoked and continue the bloodshed and resist any form of compromise.
At stake here in the coverage of this conflict is not only the rightness of the facts but also the very meaning of language. It’s time to call an intifada a war to undermine the Jewish state, and to call terror the world’s most serious threat to democratic life.