MANIPULATION OF THE MEDIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100110013-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: May 16, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100110013-5
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MANIPULATT&&THE MEDIA
-1 Rushworth M. Kidder
Belfast
He was out with guests at a
restaurant late one evening when
the phone call found him.
Rushing back to his office,
James Hawthorne, head of the
British Broadcasting Corporation
(BBC) for Northern Ireland, was met by a slightly white-
faced senior editor. The message: A correspondent had just
gotten an interview with Evelyn Glenholmes. The ques-
tion: Should the BBC broadcast it?
Some news executives would instantly have said "Yes!"
Ms. Glenholmes was a hot property, a prime suspect in the
attempted assassination of British Prime Minister Marga-
ret Thatcher by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) at a
Brighton hotel in 1984. Glenholmes had gone underground.
Getting her on tape was something of a coup.
But under Britain's Prevention of Terrorism Act, the
IRA is an illegal organization. Broadcasting Glenholmes's
words might entangle the BBC in legal considerations.
Here in Northern Ireland, only the finest of lines separates
reporting on terrorism (which is legal) from providing a
propaganda platform for terrorists (which is not).
Which was it here? When BBC correspondent Anne
Cadwallader had been approached in Dublin by several
IRA members, she didn't have time to call Belfast for
advice. Her instincts told her to go with them in their car.
She was hooded and taken to a house somewhere in Dub-
lin, where she met a young woman who said her name was
Evelyn Glenholmes.
Listening to the tape later, Mr. Hawthorne heard a
woman's voice protesting her innocence. Was it really
Glenholmes? The Dublin correspondent could not have
been expected to recognize her. Even if authentic - and
even if legal - would the broadcast stir up a hornet's nest
of criticism?
In such a case, says Hawthorne, the news executive has
to make "a very, very careful judgment as to where this
inherently difficult decision is going to land [him] with
public relations and the reputation of the BBC."
"I had a gut feeling that it was proper to do it - an
instinct that this was real news. I made that decision
between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m." Then Hawthorne did his legal
duty: He phoned the relevant authorities at 3 a.m. -
knowing he would get only a duty officer who would have
to wait until morning to refer the information higher -
and went home. The story went out with the first morning
news.
is It news or terrorist propaganda?
In the fast-paced world of breaking news, even such
apparently simple stories can involve agonizing decisions.
Yet when such stories do go out, what is their effect?
Do they contribute to the free marketplace of ideas,
helping the citizenry to understand the central issues of
their day? Or do they give terrorists a megaphone through
which to spread their message of fear to their ultimate
target - the public at large?
Do the news media, in Mrs. Thatcher's words, provide
"the oxygen of publicity" on which terrorism thrives? Or
do they in Hawthorne's words, "allow people of the most
seditious views to speak them," so that in the end "they
don't have to express them in the hard way?"
Does extensive media coverage lead to what Jerrold M.
Pbst, a psychiatrist with Defense Systems Inc., in Wash-
ington, D.C., calls a "Robinhoodization" of the terrorists,
inflating them to the proportion of folk heroes? Or does
such coverage produce what Paul Wilkinson, a terrorism
authority at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, calls
"the outrage effect" - public revulsion of terrorist acts
and demands for tougher governmental measures?
Does journalism interfere with official efforts to resolve
crises, either by giving away essential information or, as
Die Zeit political editor Dieter Buhl notes, by putting "so
much pressure on the government" that it acts without
due care? Or does it provide needed information to offi-
cials, since in hostile situations reporters can sometimes go
where government decisionmakers cannot?
Finally, are the media hooked on terrorism? "Terrorism
is drama," says Noel Koch, who oversees the Pentagon's
counterterrorism efforts. "It's got suspense, it's got griev-
ance, it's got people at risk, it's got the families that are
crying; you can't duplicate it in fiction."
So do the media, in an effort to captivate viewers, turn
to terrorist incidents whenever possible? Or do they sim-
ply report what they find, and try hard, as Alan Protheroe,
assistant director general of the BBC, says, to do it "re-
sponsibly, accurately, with total care, and with total fair-
ness in the things that [we] do not advocate"?
On these and other points there are vehement disagree-
ments, not only among students of terrorism but within
the broader public. On three points, however, there is basic
consensus:
e Television is the terrorist's medium of choice. It is far
preferable to print or radio as the outlet with the most
immediacy and the most terrifying impact.
e Television is no longer simply reporting about the
story: It has become part of the story. Making that point,
Lawrence K. Grossman, president of NBC, calls television
"the stage on which terrorist incidents are played."
e In the never-ending debate about the role of the news
media in a free democracy, television is at the center of an
ongoing controversy - and terrorism is Exhibit A.
Terrorists' growing media skills
Paul Nahon, news director at France's second television
channel, Antenne-2, has a front-seat view of the terrorists'
news-management skills. One of his four-man camera
crews is being held hostage in Lebanon. The terrorists
have colleagues in France who monitor everything said
about the situation and pass it back to the captors.
In deciding how to cover the story, he says, "we have to
be very, very careful every day. [The terrorists] are man-
aging all this like professionals - professional politics,
professional dramatism."
One of the noticeable developments in recent years, in
fact, lies in the increigly skillful use of publicity by
1: ~ (gild
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100110013-5
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100110013-5
terrorist organizations. "The vice-president for media rela-
tions," says Dr. Post, referring only half in jest to the
individual within nearly every terrorist group who orches-
trates media coverage.
With the growth of inexpensive videotape equipment,
these groups are increasingly able to provide news organi-
zations with television-ready footage: messages from ter-
rorist leaders, interviews with captives, and even (in the
case of British journalist Alec Collett, who disappeared in
Lebanon in March 1985) visual records of executions.
Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization now
owns a share in an Arab communications satellite, leading
one observer to wonder whether the world will soon see a
new network, "Television Arafat."
And, as last summer's hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in
Beirut showed, terrorists are getting very good at organiz-
ing press conferences and handling requests for inter-
views: A tour of the plane was reportedly offered to the
networks for $1,000, and a session with the hostages
themselves could be had for $12,500.
While NBC's Mr. Grossman likes to recount figures from
a Gallup poll showing that 89 percent of Americans ap-
plauded television's coverage of the TWA incident, other
observers, especially overseas, where television coverage
is more understated, are less approving. "What [the Ameri-
can] media did in Lebanon during the TWA hijacking was
disastrous," says Hans Josef Horchem, former head of
West German domestic security and a recognized expert on
counterterrorism. "It not only hurt the interests of the
security forces, it was a question of taste."
In retrospect, says Ari Rath, editor of the Jerusalem
Post, the TWA incident "is probably a very good example
of very sophisticated use by hijackers and terrorists of the
media."
To report or not to report
Mr. Rath, who like all other Israeli editors operates
under a carefully organized form of governmental censor-
ship, feels the tug between journalist and citizen.
"When you work as an Israeli journalist, you also have
the other part in you, and that is your security aware-
ness." He cites an example of a terrorist bombing several
years ago that made use of a new method: a bicycle frame
filled with TNT. When his paper reported how the bomb
was made, the censor chastised him, showing point by
point how his article had hindered both immediate and
long-term police work. "It was an eye-opener," says Rath,
who remains persuaded that his paper did the wrong
thing. "One could have given a very good and grim and
realistic description of that particular bombing incident
without giving away some details which really did harm
the investigation."
"What is more important," muses Rath, "to have the
one-time scoop or save lives?"
Should the media, then, not publicize full details of
terrorist incidents? Ambassador Robert B. Oakley, director
of the US State Department's Office of Counter-Terrorism
and Emergency Planning, thinks not. "There's a long his-
tory of what you might call copycatism [and] competitive-
ness, [especially] among Middle East terrorist groups."
His point was substantiated when the Feb. 28 assassina-
tion of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was followed
less than 36 hours later by the assassination of Zafer
Masri, the mayor of the West Bank city of Nablus, under
almost identical circumstances.
Observers also call attention to the news media's report-
z
ing of counterterrorism measures taken by security forces.
During the siege of the Iranian Embassy in London in 1980,
recalls the BBC's Mr. Protheroe, journalists were puzzled
when a Thames Gas Board van came through police cor-
dons, parked very close to the building, and produced
several men with jackhammers who drilled up the street.
At the time, journalists were told it was to shut off the
gas in case of an explosion. Later, they learned that the
jackhammers provided noise cover for the Special Air
Service commandos, who were drilling peepholes through
the embassy walls from the building next door.
"I think you've got to report that," says Protheroe,
although he would not want it reported while the incident
was under way. His reason: to keep the electorate as fully
informed as possible.
Censorship vs. self-regulstlon
Throughout the debate on the media's role, one call
stands out: the need for journalistic self-regulation and not
censorship. First, censorship would clearly violate one of
the treasured cornerstones of democracy: a free press.
"One of the biggest victories terrorists could ever
achieve," notes NBC's Grossman, "would be to force de-
mocracies to adopt the repressive press restrictions of
dictatorships."
But there is a second and more subtle reason: Given the
pace of today's technology, censorship simply would not
work. The anticipated threat: satellite television, beamed
from any part of the world and receivable by viewers
anywhere. In Europe, where some of the state-run televi-
sion networks have worked out (1) fairly high standards
of taste and (2) agreements with national security forces
to withhold or delay broadcasts in certain cases, there is
broad concern about the effect of general access to the
major US networks.
If European television had to face pressure from Ameri-
can television, says Peter Goebel of West Germany's sec-
ond television channel, ZDF, "I'm almost sure [the Euro-
pean stations] won't be able to keep their principles."
Nachman Shai, director of Israeli Army Radio and a
former television journalist, finds the situation doubly
difficult in Israel, where foreign television crews are a
constant presence. However much Israeli journalists might
choose not to broadcast certain pictures, he says, "there is
such competition it is almost impossible to stop pictures
from getting out."
Is such competition good or bad? How free should the
media be? Again, there is serious disagreement.
`t'he disadvantages of the public not bein accurately
informed or bein informe onl by a ministration
spokesmanare too severe in our society. say
Central Intelligence Agency chief Stansfield 1rner
.`Whil e I decry the media releasing sec rarer much-as they
do, I would never think of trying to organize a government
censorship bureau."
But Rand Corporation scholar Paul B. Henze sees a need
for greater controls on the media. "What has been gained
by all of the minute media reporting on terrorism? Whose
interests have been served? Who has learned something? I
find it very hard to think very readily of what good has
been done by just simply tantalizing people."
But, putting the problem in another perspective. he
notes that the criticism may well be overblown. "If the
media had had as much deleterious impact as many critics
of the media think," he quips, "we'd all be finished."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100110013-5