Media reporting of terrorism

/çɛsus/, I’ve never read this guy, but this constant demolishing of what he says makes me wonder why anyone does.

When more than half of a person’s citations directly contradict his claim, I generally feel confident in saying “No, he’s not basically correct.” It’s one thing to push ambiguous data into sharply defined categories – this is the fun of taxonomy, and it’s a game the whole family can play. It’s another to say “A, and you can see it here”, except that if anyone goes and looks there, what they see is B. My cat is about 15 pounds and pure black, and I saw two dogs yesterday who were 10-15 pounds and pure black, but my cat did not become a dog when I got home, nor at any other time.

Pipes has a history of this. He writes things that sound plausible to a lay reader concerned about truth and moral judgment in a time of (as Tom Lehrer put it) “universal crisis and general bruhaha”, but he can’t deliver the truth reliably, and that makes his moral judgment irrelevant.

The Reuters policy is long, long-established. And a good one: this is not a matter of resorting to euphemism, but rather to avoid resorting to laziness.

But I want a survey of news stories about Daniel Pipes that, unjustifiably, refrain from using the word ‘arsehole’.

I completely disagree with this author’s critic of David Pipes’ comments. It is completely evident from these articles, which I have also looked up, that there is some inherent “rationalization” by the media for the terrorists’ actions, by refusing to use the word “terrorist”.

Moreover, I think this author here at Crooked Timber is doing a disservice to free people by suggesting that the media is NOT accountable for their actions in “humanizing” such terrorist monsters. This teflon treatment of the media hurts all people – liberal and conservative. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Daniel Pipes in general, the media’s kid-gloves treatment of such terrorist monsters is a TACTIC that terrorists count on to promote their cause, and to have far-left media editors “rationalize” no matter what horrible things they do.

The media wants to treat these individuals as “alleged” criminals as if public opinion was a court of law. But these terrorists are not alleged criminals; they relish their crimes against humanity. The media plays the fool by suggesting that West somehow is “guilty” for their monsterous actions. This is within the same week that UK television broadcasts a program showing the “human side” of 9/11 attackers, and Germany has a new film showing the “tender side” of Adolf Hitler.

The moral relativist idea is that calling a terrorist by their name must be avoided to prevent “offending” anyone’s point of view. Such moral relativism is the philosphy of the mainstream media. However, with such vicious predator terrorists as our enemy, moral relativism will be the death of us all. One can imagine the reporters reading international terrorists their Miranda rights while terrorists murder more innocents.

One poster here has suggested that terrorism should be avoided as a “pejorative” term – why? Isn’t terrorism a condemnable act? Isn’t that the point of Pipes’ article? Isn’t murdering innocent children in cold blood condemnable? Isn’t the word “murder” also “negative”? Again the path down global moral relativism can make news reporting totally abstract from human experience. How far do we need to go with euphemisms for terror to keep from offending evil people?

I urge readers here to read the original Daniel Pipes article, and not to just take this author’s cricitism for granted here on Crooked Timber. The original article is at:

http://www.danielpipes.org/article/2066

Lets look at some of Pipes’ references again. Note I am certain that some of these that are news feeds got “edited” with more “current” versions, since Pipes’ original references. However, lets look at a sampling to see how “unfair” Pipes’ critique of the media really is.

Guardian:
“Witnesses reported that the hostage-takers had attempted to justify their brutality by claiming it was an act of revenge for the killing by Russian forces of Chechen children.”

Economist:
“Russian forces have stormed a school where hundreds of children and adults were being held by rebels demanding Chechen independence. ”

Associated Press:
“Captors’ cruelty terrified hostages”, “Gadieyeva said the hostage-takers were clear in their intentions.”

London Times:
“Dealing with criminals, however fanatical, is a matter for the police and security services.”

Washington Post:
“Hundreds of children, their parents and teachers died in the bloody culmination of a 52-hour siege that began when heavily armed Muslim guerrillas stormed their school Wednesday and ended in an hours-long battle with Russian troops Friday.”

Australian:
“This man personally took part in the attack, he was part of that gang, he took part in shooting.”

Reuters:
“Up to 20 people were believed to have been killed when the gunmen seized the building last Wednesday and herded their captives into the gym. Officials said security forces killed all the estimated 26 hostage takers.”

LA Times:
“On Saturday, authorities laid out the bodies of all 26 hostage-takers in the schoolyard here. Authorities believe they are linked to rebels from Chechnya, the nearby republic that has been engaged in a separatist war with Russian forces for most of the past 10 years, or neighboring Ingushetia, where rebel violence also has broken out. Russian officials said 10 of the fighters were Arabs but provided no proof.”

NY Times:
“Heavily armed insurgents, some with explosives strapped to their bodies, seized a school here in southern Russia on Wednesday, herded scores of schoolchildren, parents and teachers into its gymnasium and threatened to kill them. More than a dozen guerrillas, including men and women, stormed Middle School No. 1….”

Chicago Tribune:
“Many children among 200 killed as Russians rush rebels after explosion”. “The raid lasted more than four hours as commandos fought militants holed up in and around the school.”

OK does this read like terrorism to you? We can infer, but the terrorists can also infer that they have a friend in the Western media – which sugar coats their actions and somehow “rationalizes” them. That is problem for all free people and something that needs to be condemned. If Daniel Pipes can help do that, then God bless him for his help.

Remember – terrorists do not distinguish who they kill – US or UK – right or left – young or old – these predators have no respect for human life.

Jeffrey Imm
http://www.unitedstatesaction.com

The idea is that *every* reference to the perpetrators must use the word “terrorist”. They did take hostages, but to call them “hostage-takers” is to miss an opportunity to call them “terrorists”. They are part of a rebellion, but to call them “rebels” is to miss an opportunity to call them “terrorists”. They carried guns, but to call them “gunmen” is to miss an opportunity to call them “terrorists”. They committed crimes, but to call them “criminals” is to miss an opportunity to call them “terrorists”. It doesn’t matter how many times you do call them terrorists; you must never call them anything else. “Terrorists terrorist terrorist terrorist terrorists…”

What this is called, of course, is bad writing.

Both sides have a valid point, I think.

“Rebels” is dubious because it has positive connotations, and “activists” is even worse – perhaps it was a mistranslation by Pakistan Times. Unfortunately, Pakistan is a hotbed of state-supported Islamist fanaticism, so it may not be.

But “gunmen” and “hostage takers”? Would anyone really read an article about these horrific crimes and come out of it thinking:

“Oh, but they were gunmen so that makes it OK!”

Please.

Substituting “gunmen” for “terrorists” some of the time is not necessarily born of any sinister intentions. Nor is it evidence of “rationalisation”.

Chris,

1. Richard Pipes has big axes and he’ll keep grinding them at every opportunity. Are we now going to get a weekly Pipes post (I like the sound of that but not its implication) to remind us of that tiresome fact?

2. Some media have twisted their Middle East and South Asia reports into pretzels trying to avoid the word “terrorists”. The original motive for that may have been understandable, i.e. (to simplify outrageously): don’t take sides. As well, as any writer knows, re-using the same word over and over in a single piece makes for very bad reading, hence the search for synonyms. But it is makes no sense whatever to avoid calling the people who slaughtered the children in Beslan terrorists. Or, for that matter, the bombers of those two buses in Beersheva, or the murderers of those Nepalese workers in Iraq. If the word has any meaning at all, it is applicable in these cases. Indeed, the argument could now be (an argument that Pipes distorts for his longstanding purposes) that any medium not calling the perpetrators terrorists (i.e., not once in a long report) is taking sides.

3. This is a disappointing post in that it is clearly “tit for tat”. After all the criticism that CT has received in recent days, it is natural that some prominent CT-ers would feel defensive. But the criticism was (mostly) intelligent and equanimous and Pipes is hardly an appropriate strawman.

This strange obsession with policing the language of others for the “Correct” terms regardless of the context should be encouraged. After all, this sort of nonsense has done irreperable harm to the left over the last 20 years. It’s time for the right to indulge in self-defeating language games.

Yes Ron, the Guardian piece is by the somewhat barmy John Laughland. “I wrote a post about him a few weeks back”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002269.html .

Mr. Pipes often uses the euphemism “terrorists”, shying away from what they really are: “Evil Terrorists.”

This is within the same week that UK television broadcasts a program showing the “human side” of 9/11 attackers

I imagine this is referring to “The Hamburg Cell”. For the sake of accuracy, it wasn’t a “tv broadcast” in the sense of a documentary or political programme – it was a film.
Here is the director explaining her choice of subject:

“The film is in no way supporting the horrific act these individuals perpetrated,” says Bird. “But these guys were not demons. They were not psychopaths. They were ordinary young men, who came from middle-class families, with money and education. I think that is something we have to confront and be aware of.”
(…) “We talked about how to tell the story of these men without eliciting sympathy for them, which we don’t have,” says Bird.
(…) “The difficulty was the obvious distaste that all of us who made the film have about those sentiments,” says Bird. “It’s very hard to put those kinds of arguments up on screen.
“I once directed a play at the Royal Court Theatre – Oi For England, by Trevor Griffiths. It was about a bunch of skinhead boys who get recruited by the British Movement [a forerunner of the BNP], and the British Movement guy had the most persuasive, fantastic speech I’ve ever read. People said, ‘You can’t do this.’ But yes, we had to!
“The audience at the Royal Court is a good liberal audience. They needed to know what kind of speech the British Movement were using to get these kids.
“It’s the same here. I don’t agree with it in any shape or form, but we have to be aware that this is what those who’ve twisted Islam to their own purposes are doing.”

Germany has a new film showing the “tender side” of Adolf Hitler.

See above. Same concept applies.

On the topic – I tend to agree with Robin Green and David Velleman. Also, sometimes use of the word “terrorists” is left for when there is actually a claim by a terrorist organisation. I don’t see how terrorists could care how you call them, their acts speak quite clearly. It’s a bit preposterous, this idea that Al Qaeda sits scouring the news like Daniel Pipes just to keep a database of the appellations they’ve been given. It’s also preposterous to imply people hearing terrorists referred to _also_ by other synonyms would suddenly think that terrorist acts take on a different meaning, politically or ethically. You can call a killer Mickey Mouse, it’s not going to make his actions less repulsive, unless one has a brain dysfunction by which a different word makes murder ok.

Either that, or use of a thesaurus is a terrorist activity in itself.

The reason that folks are unwilling to call the chechins “terrorists” is because we are pissing on the russians legs while calling it rain. The current administration lacks any sympathy for the russians due to 2 major reasons:
1 – The old cold warrior mentality is still strong at bushco.
2 – The russians did not drop their pants and bend over when we wanted to invade iraq.

That is why administration officials are meeting with chechin leaders of “the rebellion.” We would have had shitfits if some country had binLaden over for tea.

Rememeber that paragraph in Putin’s speech that you were worried about? I think that is Putin calling us out.

Journalists should be encouraged to use as informative terms as possible.
– Rebels: why is this thought positive? The reporting problem is that it’s still only inference they the terrorists were in fact Chechen separatists.
– Guerillas? Factually misleading : a reference guerilla is a rural combatant in an organised unit, usually in some sort of uniform. Similar to maquisard. In Chechnya itself, some separatists are fighting as guerillas.
– Insurgents: where’s the insurrection or the barricades? Insurgents may be only semi-violent (stone-throwing) and the occasion is limited in time.
– Gunmen: also applies to non-political criminals or nutcases; not helpful.
– Hostage-takers: accurate but limited.
The non-evaluative political description would be something like “clandestine combatant”. Almost all terrorists are clandestines, but not vice versa. Clandestines may limit themselves to more or less military targets, like al-Sadr’s militia or the Irgun, but regular soldiers on the receiving end see the behaviour as worse than unfair and describe it as terrorism.

Guardian:
“Witnesses reported that the hostage-takers had attempted to justify their brutality by claiming it was an act of revenge for the killing by Russian forces of Chechen children.”

Excuse me, but that is an eyewitness report of what the terrorists had claimed. Reporting what the terrorists say is now appeasement? Jesus.

I think Reuters should pick a definition of “terrorist” and stick to it, but their approach is preferable to other extreme–using terrorist for “an attack on the U.S. by Muslims.”

Most of the other Western sources seem to guilty only of using synonyms in the same article, which is just good writing. Pipes is full of it.

And really, even Reuters’ policy does not matter all that much. We know what these guys are. Their actions speak for themselves.

The Right’s war against the media has gone pretty well if this is the biggest straw man they can build.

Having read the Pipes article, the only person who is distracting attention away from the true nature of the atrocity in Beslan in Pipes, using the opportunity to score points off those he sees as his political opponents. This is despicable behaviour whichever word you find in your Roget.

Jeffrey Imm (David) and r. (Richard) have different Pipes. Should we be worrying about them as well.

When we bombed that restaurant in Iraq to get Saddam, we knew there would be “collateral damage”. Our leaders accepted the fact that we would kill innocents to achieve our objectives. Does that not make us terrorists also?

When I hear this talk about how to characterize people who kill I always think of the scene in “My cousin Vinny” where Marisa Tormei is talking about Bambi walking through the forrest, bending down to take a drink from a stream, and BAM some asshole blows her brains out.”Do you think she cares what pants that guy is wearing”.

Our leaders talk about humanitarian liberation in one breath and then in the next they talk about how much better it is to have the fight over there. Humanitarian flypaper theory.
A rose, by any other name, would still smell as sweet.

“One of the things Pipes seems not to understand is that if you’re a writer, you can’t keep using the same word over and over again. Readers will find it incredibly annoying. But if you call someone a terrorist early on, and then later refer to them as a rebel or a hostage-taker or a gunman, believe me, no one is forgetting that that person is a terrorist.”

I agree that this is almost certainly the reason why non-Reuters reporters use terms other than ‘terrorist’ after thus labeling them.

Reuters is another story, they refuse to use the term even when it is clearly appropriate.
They really do twist themselves into knots avoiding the word.

Pipes is proven the fool by dramatically overreaching on his point. One major news outlet does what he tries to accuse all news outlets of doing. You can’t generally generalize that much.

Myself, I think Daniel Pipes has just taken Fowler’s attack on elegant variation too much to heart.

I went and checked, and was shocked, shocked to the core, to find that Roget’s Thesaurus offers, under the guise of synonyms, a lot of shameless apologies for terrorists! So, what sholud be done about it? Should the Thesaurus be confined to Guantanamo instead of walking freely in libraries, bookstores, and on the internet, and thus leading countless journalists into temptation?

Are were prepared to sacrifice the dictionary in the name of security? I think we should. I think we should do without words altogether. I think Pipes should lead by example on that.

Nice work by Chris. At best sloppy work by Pipes. Like a lot of posters have pointed out if I say,

‘the savage kidnappers terrorized their innocent victims.’

who the heck is going to claim my use of kidnappers was a euphemism?

Apparently Daniel Pipes and Jeffrey Imm who points to the following sentence as an example where captor was employed as euphemism for terrorist

‘Captors’ cruelty terrified hostages’

I wonder if he typed that with a straight face?

Pipes’ quibble is with the reporting of the Beslan attacks. I checked the first 6 sources and, thus far, Chris, your sources using the ‘T’ word are referring to different events and Pipes is correct on the facts.

neudoxis,

The only facts provided by Pipes are that the articles use certain words.

For instance the second link to The Economist provided by Pipes uses the word attackers.

That is the only fact Pipes provides.

Chris is right that the it also uses the following phrases

“After a wave of terrorist attacks across Russia …. Though the terrorist attacks have continued ….Moscow and other Russian cities continue to suffer terrorist outrages….The terrorists apparently bribed their way through a series of checkpoints”

That is from the link provided by Pipes.

Everything else is a matter of opinion.

Pipes is of the opinion that referring to terrorists as attackers in the context of repeatedly calling the attacks terrorist attacks and referring to the events as terrorist outrages is an instance of using attacker as a euphemism for terrorist.

Others like myself hold the opinion that such opinions are garbage.

For the record, Mr. Bertram is wrong about the Pakistan Times citation (which is the one Mr. Pipes cites as the most egregious of all). It is in fact in the author’s own voice (not attributed), and reads in full:

“The hostage-taking was the fourth attack blamed on Chechen activists to rock Russia since last week.”

Pipes notwithstanding–from what I have read of and from him, he is something of a ideologue (I’m being kind)–perhaps the news outlets, as opposed to commentators, prefer not to use “terrorists” here because it is not clear that they should. “Terrorist” is nothing more than an emotive word. It strikes me that perhaps “Chechen separatists” may be more appropriate if links are found between the perpetrators and separatist organizations. On the other hand, maybe the news reports should just describe what the perpetrators did and how they did it, and let the reader draw their own emotive reaction. And perhaps they should use a neutral characterization–“perpetrator” comes to mind.

It’s unfortunate that the people who were killed and injured last week (and don’t forget the recent downings of the airliners over Russia and the takeover of the Moscow opera house a few years ago, all of which were allegedly caused by chechen separatists) found themselves caught in the middle of a struggle between Russia and Chechnya that goes back almost two centuries–when the Russian czar invaded Chechnya and subjugated its population. On the other hand, it isn’t as if Russia doesn’t have blood on its hands for its activities there–and not just over the last ten years.

Even if Pipes was right about the use of the word, his point would still be silly. It’s like claiming that people who talk about “sunsets” and “sunrises” must necessarily believe in a Ptolemaic, geocentric model of our solar system.

Actually eudoxis, if you see my post above, Pipes is correct in his generalization, wrong in some specifics. There is a growing “unwillingness to name terrorists.”

And, it would appear, there is also an unwillingness on the part of chris to see this growing unwillingness.

It is unlikely that Journalists are actively discouraged from using the T-word for stories like Beslan. Most probably they prefer terms like suicide bomber, kidnapper, sniper or insurgent simply because these terms actually tell you something about the specific acts involved. Also, since there is little consensus on the definition of terrorism, they probably reject the term from force of habit even in clearly appropriate cases.

Experimenting with Google led me to a story of protests about a book called “American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing.” Apparently people felt that a book with that title might make McVeigh into a folk hero.

As George Orwell remarked in his diary of the blitz, when Londoners complained about the silent V-2 rockets, which replaced the frighteningly noisy V-1: “Some people are never satisfied.”

Of interest to this discussion is that many Arab journalists have had no hesitation in using the term “terrorists” to describe the perpetrators of last week’s atrocities.

According to Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, general manager of the Al-Arabiya network, “It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims.”

Bater Wardam, a popular columnist in the Jordanian daily Al-Dustour, noted a propensity to “place responsibility for the crimes of Arabic and Muslim terrorist organizations on the Mossad, the Zionists and the American intelligence, but we all know that this is not the case.”

The above from a roundup in today’s New York Times of “self-criticism in the Arab world.” Several commentators single out al-Qaradawi for particular condemnation.

The article is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/08/international/middleeast/08CND-ARAB.html?hp

Reuters is another story, they refuse to use the term even when it is clearly appropriate.
They really do twist themselves into knots avoiding the word.

As does the entire US press corps when looking for ways to describe the President as a liar, without using the actual word. Except that the Reuters policy is much more defensible.

Here’s snopes on Reuters’ policy on use of the word “terrorist.”

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/reuters.htm

And from the CBC”s 2001-2002 Ombudsman report:

There is nothing in the CBC’s journalism policy that prevents the public broadcaster’s
journalists from calling a spade a spade or a terror attack a terror attack. But I share
the view that the CBC’s information programmers should be careful with the use of
language, especially in the Middle East where, as The New York Times has reported,
“even words shoot to kill.” Terrorism is commonly defined as the deliberate
targeting of civilians, but neither side in this conflict fully respects the definition.
One side’s war on terrorism is the other side’s struggle for independence. Each side
uses and abuses the word ‘terrorist’ to frame the issues in an effort to advance its
political agenda. The request that the CBC stop using expressions like ‘militant,’
‘gunman’ or even ‘suicide bomber’ and routinely describe Palestinians involved in this
conflict as ‘terrorists’ would in effect amount to asking the CBC to take sides and to
embrace the Israeli government’s position an its definition of terrorism, which denies the legitimacy of Palestinian resistance.

http://www.cbc.ca/ombudsman/page/annreport.pdf

So in the logic of the CBC calling a group of thugs who murder children “terrorists” denies the legitimacy of the Chechen resistance. Seems a very long leap to me.

Jack,

I take your point that I have not presented “proof” that aversion to using the term terrorism is growing. Like you, I am not a professional media critic and I’m not sure I will ever be able to conduct the definitive study.

However, read the CBC ombudsman’s comment that I posted above and then take into account the fact that the CBC has steadfastly refused to call the Chechen school murderers “terrorists.”

I cannot imagine that that would have happened five years ago. something is definitely going on.

Clearly Pipes went off the rails when he accused the EConomist and the NY Post and the Christian Science Monitor of refusing to call terrorist a terrorist. But the fact remains — acknowledged by chris in his post — that some of the most important news organizations in the world have not been able to bring themselves to call the perpetrators of the Beslan massacre what they are — terrorists.

So Jack, let’s leave open the question of whether this reluctance to use the term terrorism is growing and why don’t you tell me where you stand.

Do you use the word terrorist to describe the perpetrators of the school massacre? Or do you just avoid the question?

Urbina, fellow Canadian, eh?

Urbina:

At first I thought “Er, no, Nick” was a slip and you meant “Er, no, Ann”. Apparently not. I don’t see how what you posted contradicts Nick in any way. In fact it supports him by again contradicting the claim that the Reuter’s policy was justified “on the spurious rationale that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”

Well, Jack, it looks to me like Reuters and CBC have actually fallen very deeply into traps of their own.

Reuters now calls no one terrorists — not the 9/11 terrorists or the Chechen school massacre terrorists. That’s not a good policy but a stupid amoral (immoral) one.

As for the CBC, it has refused to call the Chechen school terrorists anything but militants. Their policy, whose stated goal was to examine the use of the word terrorism, has now become a de facto ban on the term. As someone else, way up in the thread, pointed out choosing never to use the word terrorism is not a neutral position but a political choice in and of itself.

And Nick was just plain wrong when he denied that Reuters had no ban on the term terrorism as both Urbina and I have pointed out.

Finally, I have never said that the term terrorist should be used at every opportunity but rather that there is a conspicuous new tendency to avoid it.

You and I have agreed to disagree on the strength of this trend and await the definitive media analysis.

What Nick said:

[quoting Ann]Reuters is on record as saying it bans the t-word based on the spurious rationale that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.

Er, no. But thank for distorting the truth.

And in case you didn’t notice, the word “no” was a link to this page which reiterates the policy, apologizing only for poor word choice in a post 9-11 memo (i.e., “one man’s terrorist…”).

I think this was pretty clearly rebutting only Ann’s claim that the justification was spurious, not that the policy existed.

Nice try, Jack, but er, no. Read the original statement of policy (never rescinded). The linking of “terrorist” and “freedom fighter” makes its meaning clear. And its rationale spurious.

From the Reuters editorial policy page:

As part of a long-standing policy to avoid the use of emotive words, we do not use terms like ‘terrorist’ and ‘freedom fighter’ unless they are in a direct quote or are otherwise attributable to a third party. We do not characterize the subjects of news stories but instead report their actions, identity and background so that readers can make their own decisions based on the facts.

So what, exactly, is the problem here? They are not calling terrorists freedom fighters. They are saying both are value laden words (i.e., terrorist=bad, freedom fighter=good) used by various factions to frame the debate. Reuters prefers to keep their stories more firmly glued to the facts. They are not “linking” terrorist and freedom fighter, nor is the justification “spurious”.

Jack, unlike you and Dubya, I’ve tried to avoid cheap shots, not because I couldn’t make them but because they’re all too easy.

When you ask “Is it then your thesis that Reuters and the CBC are somehow allied with the International Terrorist Conspiracy?” I realize there’s no point to continuing this discussion with you.

Sorry about the duplicate trackbacks.

Jack Lecou has said it already, but my point was that Ann (and subsequently urbina) have distorted the truth in attributing to Reuters a ‘spurious rationale’ for their policy.

It’s quite clear that Ann and Urbina asserted that a phrase from a memo was a categorical statement of Reuters policy, when it quite explicitly was not, nor was it offered as such. Now that’s a spurious rationale.

And Nick was just plain wrong when he denied that Reuters had no ban on the term terrorism as both Urbina and I have pointed out.

For some reason, Ann ignored my earlier comment that ‘[t]he Reuters policy is long, long-established.’ Just as Ann ignored the stated policy of Reuters in order, misleadingly, to make her assertion.

Okay, since no one can offer a better reason, I thought I’d look at why Pipes thinks this (non-existent) phenomenon has arisen: an “odd combination of sympathy in the press for the Palestinian Arabs and intimidation by them.”

First of all, I think this ‘sympathy’ is rather less well known (in the US, anyway) than Pipes seems to believe. Moreover, he doesn’t even try to demonstrate that any such sentiment actually translates into inaccurate reporting with regard to Palestinian terrorists (unless NPR saying ‘militant’ is supposed to prove this), let alone how or why sympathy for the Palestinians’ plight should somehow result in inaccurate reporting of Saudi/Kashmiri/Chechen/etc. events.

Likewise, the only support for the intimidation claim appears to be a (deliberate?) misinterpretation of the Reuters advisory. Given the context (including the fact that Reuters already has a policy against using the word in print), it seems clear that al-Mughrabi is advising against using the word in spoken conversations with Palestinians. This seems to me not evidence of intimidation, but common sense (and courtesy). It sounds like correspondents have more than enough to worry about dodging Israeli anti-personnel shells without needing to pick fights with Palestinian passers-by…

Finally, lets go over why Pipes thinks not saying terrorist is bad:

Worse, the multiple euphemisms for terrorist obstruct a clear understanding of the violent threats confronting the civilized world. It is bad enough that only one of five articles discussing the Beslan atrocity mentions its Islamist origins; worse is the miasma of words that insulates the public from the evil of terrorism

This is absurd on its face. Using more than one descriptive noun in a story doesn’t “obstruct a clear understanding” of anything. Nor even does a cautious policy of using more neutral words such as ‘militant’, not when the facts of these stories remain as detestable as they often are.

(Also, what in hell does “Islamist origins” have to do with anything? That Economist article, for one, seems to give a pretty good background of the conflict, from which I conclude that the Chechens would probably still be righteously infuriated even if they were Buddhists or Druids or Scientologists…)

Ann: Sorry I misspelled above. Seems my fingers just want to type ‘Anne’. I managed to catch it in other posts, but that one slipped through.

What is spurious about banning the word terrorist one the grounds that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter?
How would you describe Nelson Mandela?

What kind of weak minded fool would approve of the Beslan massacre if the news agencies used “heroic freedom fighters” where “terrorists” is suggested.

What precisely is useful about describing the Beslan killers as “terrorists” at all? In other words, even allowing that some people are using alternatives to “terrorist”, what actually is wrong with that?

Well we seem to have two arguments going on here. One, that Pipes is incorrect and, two, that even if Pipes is correct, it doesn’t matter because it makes sense not to use the word terrorist anyway.

Nick thinks it’s a distorion to say that Reuters bans the use of the word terrorism on the freedom fighter/terrorist rationale yet that is exctly what it does, arguing that both words are emotive and jornalists can’t/shouldn’t distinguish. Rather than travel further into angel/pinhead territory, I leave it up to others to make their own judgments on Reuters’ policy.

None of this is to deny the fact that there are indeed situations where the use of the word terrorist can be questioned, but it’s unclear why the solution is to refrain from using it altogether. We use words that are problematic all the time — pronography, human rights, social justice. The fact that these words mean different things to different people doesn’t mean that journalists shouldn’t use them.

As to why “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” is a spurious rationale, let’s begin with the fact that it doesn’t account for all us who believe that a freedom fighter can never be a terrorist and a terrorist can never be a freedom fighter, that when you resort to terror you have given up your right to be called a freedom fighter. Unlike the CBC ombudsman many of us are able to recognize that a political movement might have legitimacy at the same time that its most extremist adherents practice terrorism.

To the people that ask why we need to call the perpetrators of the Chechen school massacres “terrorists,” I would point out that the more relevant question is why do we need NOT to call them terrorists.

No one has said that it’s wrong to ever use words like rebels or gunmen or hostage-taker. The point is that it’s disturbing to use them to the exclusion of the word terrorist.

Given that one of the main dividing factors in the discussion of terrorism today is the extent of the threat, it seems pretty clear that banning the use of the word is far more than a simple linguistic choice.

And on this note, I bow out of the discussion.

Newsweek did a whopping 1/4 page coverage of the Russian school massacre (1 photo and 3 sentences), including the lene “Fighters had seized students, parents and teachers…”

I suppose Newsweek reckoned that’s all we need to know, that they were “fighters” of some sort. I think the incident should have had more coverage, at least give the “fighters” a <-> in CW, because shooting children in the back is considered bad form by some.

On the bright side, the same issue had on the previous page a followup to the JEW SPY IN BUSH ADMINISTRATION story with a photo of alternating Israeli and American flags. No photo montage of Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, and Abu Ghraib prison abuse, however. That was back in a June issue, but something similar will probably be posted shortly before the election

“How would you like to read a news report classifying some event as violation of social justice?”

Why phrase this as a hypothetical? It is real now. I see the word ‘unjust’ or the phrase ‘an injustice’ applied to all sorts of things in the papers all the time.

Newsweek did a whopping 1/4 page coverage of the Russian school massacre (1 photo and 3 sentences), including the lene “Fighters had seized students, parents and teachers…”

Dave, that sounds pretty bad but I’d have to say that this piece of information is probably going to be put to better use in a letter to the editors of Newsweek than 92 comments down a Crooked Timber thread.

I have to add, after going through the rest of the comments, I am finally convinced, journalists are really showing too much sympathy for perpetrators of beheadings, kidnappings, child killing, lynchings and bombings. In fact, the one thing where Pipes is wrong is that the word “terrorism” is, too, alas, very very weak and not descriptive enough of said acts. People need to know that killing and bombing and kidnapping people is very bad, and I’m afraid not even “terrorism” conveys the ferocity of the above said acts. Think of the million of people lying in utter ignorance and moral chaos because of Reuters!

I would suggest that, since images have a lot more impact than words, journalists substitute _every single_ occurrence of whatever word they use to refer to terrorists with a high resolution photo depicting, in all the gruesome details, the acts being referred to. Where was the last time we saw some blood? They never ever show us people getting killed, that’s how terrorist-apologist the media are. Enough with this girly restraint about showing cruelty for what it is. The masses need to see the horror, to be rescued from the abysmal pool of moral incertitude that the Terrorist-Enabling Liberal Media have created.

Granted, it’s a bit costly to print colour photographs instead of words recurring at least 20 times in one article, but I’m sure Mr Pipes will devolve some funds to the project, just like he has with his other endeavours. Because he cares, he cares so much about making the world a better place, and no amount of blasphemous venom from terror-friendly islamo-communist weblogs like this will detract from his mission of Moral Truth. Poor Daniel, like all brave prophets, so grossly reviled and misunderstood.

Natalie, Just for the sake of avoiding misunderstanding let me make clear that my post at Crooked Timber was very narrowly focused (notwithstanding the way the comments thread went afterwards). Pipes claimed that journalist in general were reluctant to use the word “terrorist” (etc.) in connection with the murders at Beslan. He cited 20 articles to support this claim (only one of which was from the BBC). I showed that many of the articles did, in fact, use the word or related words and that therefore the evidence Pipes adduced in support of his claim didn’t support it.

On the specific question of the BBC, I agreed that the article on the BBC website that Pipes pointed do did not use the word and that this was one piece of evidence that supported his claims. However, I also noticed that I had heard BBC journalists on Radio 5 (I pricked up my ears because I was fact-checking Pipes at the time) use the word “terrorists” about the Beslan murderers. You are correct, as far as I can tell, about the BBC website.

As I said, I focused on the narrow issue of whether Pipes’s evidence supported his claims (it didn’t). There’s also the broader question of what policy news organizations should have. I didn’t touch on this. I think that I would simply say this: that while I think it quite correct to describe the Beslan murderers as terrorists, the problem for news organizations arises partly from the attempt by states to stigmatize all and any armed opposition as “terrorist”. I’d be more sympathetic to critics of journalistic reluctance to use the words if those same critics aslo expressed their disapproval of over-expansive use of those words by states and and other political actors.

“Further comment seems superfluous.”

Some comments:

You say: ” Today he gets prominence on Arts and Letters Daily for this piece which claims that journalists have shied away from using the word “terrorist” in connection with the terrorist murders at Beslan.”

Then you quote Pipes: “The press, however, generally shies away from the word terrorist, preferring euphemisms. Take the assault that led to the deaths of some 400 people, many of them children, in Beslan, Russia, on September 3.”

Pipes says the press generally avoids the word terrorist, and sets Beslan as an example.
The fact that news outlets almost never uses the T-word is not new, and the fact that it takes hundreds of murdered children to make them use it says plenty.
You distort Pipe’s claim to nitpick on some examples of edited stories. I followed those stories when his piece was published as well and all the examples he provided are correct. I also checked recently updated stories for instance:

NPR (8 sep) suspected Chechen separatists.

Grauniad (6 sep) Bombers’ justification: Russians are killing our children, so we are here to kill yours. More: “Details began to emerge yesterday as to what may have driven the school siege militants (as in mutant ninja turtles)…”Witnesses reported that the hostage-takers had attempted to justify their brutality by claiming it was an act of revenge”..Blah blah..Let’s justify them please.

AFP (4 sep the one reffered here) Au moins 322 personnes, dont 155 enfants, ont יtי tuיes outre les membres du commando) Note how AFP reports the number killed and wounded while bothering to mention that the commandos are’nt included in the death toll. How sensitive.

WaPo (9 sep) After overtaking the school, the guerrillas began unloading guns and explosives…”Officials said 32 guerrillas took part in the raid on School No. 1″ …”The captured guerrilla..”..

The Australian (9 sep) Hostage takers, gunmen and militants, more militants.
But today’s headline: Terrorists attack on Australia’s door. Hypocrites.

NY Post (9 sep) militants, attacker..Terrorists only inside ” “.

Reuters (9 sep) At least 326 hostages — half of them children — died in last Friday’s chaotic storming of School Number One in Beslan, southern Russia, after it was seized by gunmen demanding Chechen independence..Well put. No mitigating there. No.

So called bbc (9 sep)“Russia blamed the mass hostage-taking in Beslan on Chechen rebels backed by foreign Muslim militants“. Sure. They blamed militants.

So what? Does it mean that No-one should treat you as a reliable source of opinion?

Does anyone actually _watch_ the BBC? From regional news to the BBC world, BBC News 24, etc., any of the tv news programmes? If so, how can you even claim they don’t use the word?

Unless I had visual and auditory hallucinations, I must have heard – and seen, in the CAPITAL WHITE ON RED headlines on the bottom of the screen – the word “terrorist attack”, “terrorists”, “terrorism”, a million times in the past few years. Just like in all tv news outlets, CNN, Sky, CBS, CNBC, etc.

So, ok, it’s established that Reuters has a policy to avoid the word, the BBC website may have a policy to refrain from using it unless in quotes by others, but that’s rather poor ground to generalise about “the media”. Especially when one means all the media in the whole wide world. Most people get their news from tv, or radio. The word “terrorism” today is used about as often as “bread”, you’ve got to be living in another planet to complain there’s a reticence to use it.

“…you can’t argue with such absurdities.”
No, but you can calmly and reasonably refute them, as you did, and as Chris Bertram did, just above you there.
These are inspirational gestures, and commendable. Thanks.

Descriptions of the killers of children in terms that suggest that what they did was noble or justified are simply wrong and definite indicators of a lack of moral clarity.

I too disagree that any description posted above suggests that the atrocity was noble or justified.

However, lack of moral clarity is exactly what I expect from a news report. I’d like to see total absence of moral clarity, just bare facts accompanied by factual background.

If I want moral judgment I’ll read an opinion piece.