[Media-watch] Concerns over media coverage - The Observer - 26/9/2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1312967,00.html



Concerns over media coverage

David Smith
Sunday September 26, 2004
The Observer

Journalists must urgently debate whether their coverage of crises such as 
the hostage-taking in Iraq is driving terrorists to commit ever more 
outrageous atrocities, a top BBC executive said last night.

Roger Mosey, the corporation's head of television news, called on 
broadcasters and newspapers to review the ethical dilemmas raised by the 
Beslan school massacre in Russia and the terrorist-made videos of hostages 
facing murder in Iraq.

An appalling drama was played out on television last week as British hostage 
Kenneth Bigley begged Tony Blair to save his life and Bigley's family 
appealed to his captors for mercy. Some commentators now feel uneasy that 
the media is providing a platform for terrorists, for whom the Internet is 
already a powerful weapon.

Mosey said: 'The terrorists clearly want to lead the international news 
agenda, so there is a danger they will commit worse atrocities to get more 
coverage. There has to be a debate among journalists. It is no longer enough 
to say these images will reach the public domain and therefore we have an 
excuse for showing them.

'The argument that "it's on the Internet, therefore it's in the public 
domain" doesn't quite hold yet. Putting something on TV in millions of 
people's homes, or on a front page that is all over the news stands, is 
something different. Looking for a site on the internet is a choice. This is 
an ethical question for media worldwide and it involves all of us.'

The concern was echoed by Andrew Neil, the broadcaster and former editor of 
the Sunday Times, although he rejected calls for censorship. 'We are playing 
into the hands of the terrorists,' he said. 'I'm beginning to think they 
even know there's a Labour party conference next week: they've killed the 
two American hostages but not the British one. It seems to me they're rather 
sophisticated: they can see our TV on the web and our tabloids, and they 
know how it's playing. Having said all that, I see no alternative. In a free 
country with a free press we have to cover the news.'

But there was fierce criticism of the media's role from Lord Tebbit, the 
former Tory Cabinet minister who was himself a victim of terrorism in the 
Brighton bombing 20 years ago. 'We've got it hopelessly, completely and 
utterly wrong,' he said. 'We let this dominate the news agenda. It's meat 
and drink to the hostage takers. It means they will seek to take another 
British hostage. The media and the British public have become emotionally 
constipated.'

Broadcasters defended their handling of the crisis. 'We're being terribly, 
terribly cautious,' said David Mannion, editor-in-chief of ITV News. 'We're 
not using any video of the moments before hostages are killed. If we found 
it journalistically compelling to show any of these moments, we would use a 
still frame. It's not because of the "oxygen of publicity", which I regard 
as a political argument, but to preserve the dignity and human rights of the 
individual concerned.'

Nick Pollard, head of Sky News, said: 'Most people in the business, like 
most viewers, feel uneasy about all the videos we've seen. But I feel it's 
right to show the videos as we've been showing them. If we weren't showing a 
video and at some stage the hostage was killed, and it turned out later this 
hostage had made direct appeals to Tony Blair which were not seen, I think 
the public's reaction would be: "We should have known this. It was censored 
by the media and the government." '

The broadcasters are coming to terms with the growing power of the internet, 
which experts say is likely to play an increasing role in Islamic militancy. 
Activists linked to al-Qaeda now publish a regular 'training bulletin' on 
the web. A compilation of video clips of executions placed on the web by the 
al-Tauhid group three weeks ago has been downloaded more than 20,000 times, 
according to research by Reuven Paz, an Israeli specialist in radical Islam.

The websites are also key in circulating edicts by clerics. Much of 
al-Tauhid's ideology is based on writings by the British-based scholar Abu 
Qutada, who is currently held in Belmarsh high security prison in south 
London. His works are widely available on the internet. Abu Baseer, another 
radical scholar, used an internet site to encourage a militant group in 
northern Iraq to fight coalition forces during the war last year.