Good example of an Editor trying to dance and justify not calling a terrorist a "terrorist".
orlandosentinel.com
COMMENTARY: MANNING PYNN
Militant or terrorist: Judging the news
Manning Pynn
August 24, 2003
When the Sentinel mentions al-Qaeda, the organization held responsible for destroying the World Trade Center towers and damaging the Pentagon, it refers to "terrorists."
When the newspaper writes about Islamic Jihad and Hamas, which bragged of blowing up a Jerusalem bus this past week, it refers to "militants."
Jeffery Cabaniss of Cocoa thinks all three are "terrorist" organizations. "I believe that it is impossible to accurately use the word 'militant' to describe Hamas," he wrote Friday. "They are not engaging in 'combat' when they sneak up on a bunch of civilians and kill them without warning."
Cabaniss, a Christian supporter of Israel, is not alone in that belief. Similar messages -- one from Daniel Coultoff, chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando's community relations committee -- prompted the Sentinel's style committee earlier this year to review the use of those two words.
In April, the committee adopted this standard: "Use caution when using these terms [militants, terrorists], which can show bias toward one side in a conflict. Generally, 'bombers,"attackers' or 'suicide bombers' are preferred terms."
The term "terrorist" certainly expresses judgment: It imputes to the person or organization being described the motive of trying to instill fear. "Militant" seems to me much more neutral. And that may be why the Sentinel, despite its style committee's decision, continues to use that term to describe Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Most of the news organizations I surveyed do the same.
I'm afraid that the horse is out of the barn on the labeling of al-Qaeda. Although journalists strive to avoid expressing bias in reporting the news, the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, so shocked Americans -- including the news media -- that they almost universally applied the term "terrorism" to what had happened. I don't think the Sentinel will retreat from that.
Does that mean, though, that we should extend that judgment to all attacks on civilians?
Sami Qubty, president of the Arab-American Community Center of Central Florida, doesn't think so.
A pacifist Palestinian who holds dual American and Israeli citizenship, he contends that the suicide bombers -- whose tactic he abhors -- differ from al-Qaeda in this regard: "They're resisting occupation."
Qubty acknowledged that suicide bombings resemble terrorism but likened them to the actions of Israelis "when they go out and shoot a missile and kill innocent bystanders."
By that standard, of course, any nation at war could be labeled "terrorist" when attacks take civilian lives.
And that raises another element that distinguishes the Sept. 11 attacks and the Middle East conflict: The United States was not at war when it was attacked; Israel and the Palestinians have been engaged in armed conflict for decades.
I won't presume to resolve the Middle East crisis here. It is tragic and involves acts I regard as terrorism.
But my belief -- and those of others who recoil at the violence -- doesn't warrant further injecting judgmental terms into impartial news reporting. |
