Ottawa Citizen on T-word

The Ottawa Citizen is a voice of reason among journalists who continue to refuse to call terror by its name:

Terrorism is a technical term. It describes a modus operandi, a tactic. We side with security professionals who define terrorism as the deliberate targeting of civilians in pursuit of a political goal. Those who bombed the nightclub in Bali were terrorists. Suicide bombers who strap explosives to their bodies and blow up people eating in a pizza parlour are terrorists. The men and women who took a school full of hostages in Beslan, Russia, and shot some of the children in the back as they tried to flee to safety were terrorists. We as journalists do not violate our impartiality by describing them as such.

Ironically, it is supposedly neutral terms like "militant" that betray a bias, insofar as they have a sanitizing effect. Activists for various political causes can be "militant," but they don't take children hostage...
Sometimes, an editor will insert a sentence into a wire service report to ensure readers have the full context of the story. For example, some wire reports will describe Hamas or some like-minded group as fighting Israeli "occupation." In fact, Hamas is openly dedicated to the destruction of the entire Jewish state. An editor is quite right to contextualize the story by adding that Hamas views all of Israel as "occupied" land...

Osama bin Laden would have us believe that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Nonsense. If you deliberately target civilians in pursuit of a political goal, you are a terrorist. Journalists should not, and the Citizen will not, be afraid to say so.

Posted at 12:28 PM

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Comments

Every one should forward a copy of this editorial to every news out let that lacks the courage of the Ottawa Citizen.

Posted by: Michael at Sep 19, 2004 10:52:00 PM

What could be more terrifying to you than the invasion and occupation of your land and the subsequent systematic destruction of your people? Indigenous peoples in the past who managed to kill a few far better armed predatory invaders were labelled "savages". Today some would prefer to call them "terrorists". But as someone far wiser than any careerist news editor once pointed out - "History isn't just one damn thing after another - it's the same damn thing over and over". Colonialism/promised-land-claiming is what it is and always has been - theft (with assault and battery for good measure); and anyone can understand this. What's more difficult for the by-stander to accept is that he/she should, for some reason, be cheering the invaders on or even contributing money to their cause. Most people would rather see a thief in the dock.

Posted by: at Sep 20, 2004 9:18:09 PM

is this cyber intifada?

Posted by: at Jan 8, 2005 5:25:05 PM