From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 4/27/2005 5:01 AM
27.04.2005
The Media Should not Fight Terrorism
On 17th March the Parliamentary Assembly Commission on Culture, Science and Education held parliamentary hearings in Paris at which participants discussed issues such as the role assigned to the mass media in terrorists’ plans, the ability of the mass media to self-regulate, the existing legislation in this sphere and the opportunities to improve them through political means.
Amongst the participants at the hearings were Timur Aliev, editor of the «Chechen Society» newspaper, the editor of «El Pais», Francisco Gor, the Figaro correspondent, Georges Malbrunot, the General Secretary of «Reporters without Borders», Robert Menard, Vit Pohanka, a correspondent for «Czech Radio», a TV presenter and member of the editorial team for «Al-Jazeera», Mohamed Krichen and the Controller of Editorial Policy from the BBC, Stephen Whittle.
Commentary
Everyone understands that we need to do something about terrorism, both in Russia and in Europe, but what we should do and how, is known only by a few. Nor is there any guarantee that the opinion of these experts is right. The hearings at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe entitled, «The Media and Terrorism», which took place mid-March in Paris, were dedicated to finding out the opinion of the press on this issue.
The issue of terrorism in Russia, as a rule, is strictly linked to the Caucasus. In Europe it became particularly topical after the explosion at the train station in Madrid. Nevertheless, outside of Russia people approach the subject of elaborating a method to fight terrorism very carefully. Those who gathered at the hearing put forward the idea that the continuation of or end to terrorist acts and terrorists’ activities could depend on their coverage. Consequently participants at the hearings discussed to what extent «the fight against terrorism» is applicable to journalists’ work.
It is clear that there is a link — terrorists need the informational sphere for the promulgation of their ideas, since a terrorist without ideology is just a bandit. It would be naive to suggest, however, a direct link between terror and its coverage. In today’s world of the global application of PR techniques it would be strange if terrorists avoided this invention completely. But we can tell that PR is not the most important thing for them from the example of our native representative of terror — Shamil Basaev. The capture of the school in Beslan organised by him was a consequence of an informational blockade on Chechnya and the actions of the separatists. In order to break it Basaev, the leader of the radical wing of the fighters, undertook a «diversion» event outside of Chechnya’s borders in Ingushetia in June 2004. On 23rd June his supporters practically took over the Republic for several hours, killing around 100 members of various security services. This event received very broad publicity in the press.
Inspired by their success the radical separatists tried to do this again at the end of August, this time in Grozny itself, killing around 70 police officers. However, the media «publicity» surrounding this event was minimal.
After this Basaev took his activities outside of Chechnya again. The capture of the school in Beslan was a consequence of this, as was the following widespread media resonance. This shows that the media censure in Russia could not stop terrorist activities. If we write about terrorists they are inspired to carry out more terrorist activities, if we do not write about them they get annoyed and think up even more acute versions of the terrorist act. So, however little the mass media cover terrorist activities they still take place. This means that there are practically only two methods of fighting terrorism left: destroying those who promulgate these ideas or fulfilling their conditions. The press has no effect on the result of either of these.
Timur Aliev / Chechen Society
http://www.chechentimes.org/en/press/?id=28450
