AuthorGilles Demptos is News & Media Public Policy Principal at Impact4News Archives
February 2018
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Terrorism, Trust and the Media2/5/2018 When on 7 January 2015 eight employees of the French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo were killed by Islamic terrorists in their Paris newsroom, the condemnation of this barbaric act was unanimous in France and internationally. A controversy nevertheless arose rapidly when some voices suggested that, had the publication handled potentially sensitive religious issues with greater restraint, the tragedy might have been avoided.
Should the press rein itself in every time there is a risk of hurting the feelings of one social group or another? There is a certain amount of room for debate on this complex issue. But the mere suggestion that responsibility for the Paris killings could be lifted from the murderers' shoulders and placed even partially on the victims’ triggered a wide and legitimate outcry. Two days later, as the Charlie Hebdo assailants were still on the run, one of their accomplices entered a kosher supermarket in the east of the French capital. He killed four people and held several hostages. A few customers managed to hide in a refrigerated storage room. Using their mobile phones, they alerted their relatives and the authorities to their perilous situation. Somehow, that information was picked up and reported by a local news radio station, putting lives at risk, because – as it happened – the gunman in the supermarket was actually listening to that station to monitor the moves of the police and the situation of the other terrorists! This tragic anecdote raises essential questions about the role and responsibility of the media when a grave crisis, such as a natural disaster, an armed conflict or a terrorist attack occurs. Transparency is key for restoring trust The press’ mission to report the news objectively, to enable citizens to take decisions with an adequate knowledge of the issues at stake and of the possible consequences of their actions and choices, is no doubt a complex exercise. It is also often a dangerous one, especially in the case of natural disasters, gunfights or the activities of organised crime. According to the annual report compiled by the International News Safety Institute (INSI), Killing the Messenger, a total of 115 journalists died in 2016 simply for doing their jobs. The global spread of terrorism and violent extremism in recent years, led by organisations such as ISIS and Al Qaeda, implies that we live in a world where any place can, at any time, be converted into a war zone. That is a threat that not only governments, intelligence services and police forces but also the media and – more widely – the entire society must be ready to face at any moment in time. Beyond the training of reporters in safety and first-aid measures, effective planning for emergency situations must include the setup and regular review of special workflows specifying how, in such circumstances, the news will be processed and distributed over the numerous channels available to modern media houses, including SMS alerts, chat apps and social media networks. In dealing with the eventuality of a terror attack, those emergency guidelines may also define, in coordination with the relevant government agencies, what kind of information should – or should not – be reported. Generally speaking, there should be no restriction whatsoever on the public’s right to be informed. Experience has shown that attempts to hide or restrict information about an unfolding incident severely damages people’s trust in the media and the government, and tends to cause confusion and fear to a far greater extent that the unequivocal disclosure of the truth. Stopping terrorism from cleaving society As pointed out in Terrorism and the Media, a recently published UNESCO handbook for journalists, “It is important to remember that the goal of these violent actors is not to bring terror for terror’s sake (…) Their real objective is to cleave society down the centre, turning people against each other by provoking repression, discrimination and discord.” In the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attack, reprisals against the French Muslim population were widely feared. Leading newspapers and radio and TV stations played a key role in explaining the context of the attacks and in disclosing the extremist and criminal backgrounds of the assailants, thus preventing breaches in the population’s unified response to the horror of the killings. When a terrorist act occurs, the media should therefore aggressively investigate all aspects of the situation, using governmental and other sources, and disclose the nature of the attack, its impact, the identity of the perpetrators and any other relevant information so as to shed full light on the events with the required immediacy and exhaustiveness. The only tolerable exception to that principle is, of course, when the disclosure of certain information could – as in the Paris supermarket attack – put civilians’ lives at risk or disrupt police operations in their attempts to detain the perpetrators of the attack. This exception to the media’s duty to inform must be specified carefully. Strengthening journalism standards in times of crisis Beyond such specific exceptions, in times of crisis the ethics and standards of independent journalism should not be altered or weakened, but – on the contrary – strengthened and applied with the strictest rigor. More than in other situation, for instance, the media should make sure that all published information has been duly authenticated by reliable sources. In the tense and highly emotional environment of a crisis, news media should also of course refrain from using click-bait headlines, adopting a sensationalistic tone, or publishing images that are too gruesome or may harm the dignity of the victims. Some media may, for example, choose to blur parts of photos of an attack scene in order to avoid converting the victims' distress into a show. But once again, that humane respect must be carefully balanced against the media’s obligation to inform the public with the utmost objectivity and completeness. Apart from merely reporting the facts with speed and accuracy, the press’ ability to interpret the news, enriching the reports with analysis and commentary, is obviously decisive in helping the public fully understand and appreciate the impact of the events. By pro-actively preventing minority groups from being unfairly stigmatized and by widening the focus of their coverage to highlight the spontaneous manifestations of solidarity and mutual support in the aftermath of a tragedy, the press also has the power to short-circuit the chaos and division that terrorists aim to instill in the heart of our societies. A shared responsibility It is nonetheless worth mentioning that – no matter how well-prepared and how rigorously ethical they might be – news media cannot perform their crucial mission if the public does not value their role. That is also true if populist politicians publicly question the media's accuracy every time a story inconveniences them, exacerbating the current erosion of trust in traditional media around the world. Many people and institutions, including individual politicians, governments, political parties, technology companies powering social media networks and other mass content distribution platforms, and ultimately citizens themselves, have important parts to play in the functioning of the healthy news ecosystem that is vital to an open society, especially in the face of the divisive threat posed by extremist terror.
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