TERRORISM AND THE MEDIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302480005-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 31, 2012
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: December 6, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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THE WASHINGTON POST
A-RDP90-00965R000302480005-3
1150 15TR STREET, N.W. ? WASHINGTON, D.C. 2uw, L ? (AvA) 444-tiftUU
Terrorism and the Media
By
Katharine Graham
Chairman of the Board
The Washington Post Company
The English-Speaking Union of the Commonwealth
The Churchill Lecture
Guildhall
London
December 6, 1985
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THE WASHINGTON POST COMPANY
1130 13TH STREET, N.W. ? WASHINGTON, D.C. 20071 ? [phone]
Terrorism and the Media
By
Katharine Graham
Chairman of the Board
The Washington Post Company
The English-Speaking Union of the Commonwealth
The Churchill Lecture
Guildhall
London
December 6, 1985
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Good evening. 'It's an enormous honor for me to be here, and
I'm grateful that many of you braved the rain and delayed a
mad dash to the country to attend this lecture. Ever since
the Treasure Houses of Britain opened in Washington, we know
all about the pleasures of country life here.
As I looked over the list of distinguished speakers who have
preceded me -- and as I contemplated the monumental and
intimidating legacy of the man in whose honor these lectures
are named -- I felt only too keenly my own inadequacies.
Churchill was the only journalist who later became a world
leader. I remember his inspirational voice on the radio from
across the ocean during the war. His heroic leadership,
articulated though his majestic command of the English
language, inspired embattled people to fight for democracy and
preserve our way of life.
I would not presume to address these cosmic issues of war and
peace or the future of the English-speaking world. My
background and my work equip me to speak of only one subject
with which Churchill was familiar: the press. Fortunately,
as he once said, "The press is an inspiring theme, especially
to those who get their living by it."
This evening I propose to speak of the press and its role in
one of the most challenging and dangerous phenomena of our
time: terrorism.
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Hall, killing a radio reporter in the process. Altogether,
the terrorists take 134 hostages in three buildings by
gunpoint, force them to-the floor and threaten to kill them
unless their demands are met.
The police and FBI surround all three buildings. And, as
could be expected, the media descend on the scene en masse.
Live television pictures carrying the group's warnings and
demands soon go forth over the airwaves. One hundred and
thirty-four lives hang in the balance.
Before proceeding, let me assure you that this crisis actually
happened. On March 9, 1977, the Hanafi Muslims did indeed
carry out this terrorist attack, on the very day Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin was meeting with President Jimmy
Carter.
This incident, which fortunately ended with the surrender of
the terrorists and no further loss of life, reveals a number
of important characteristics of terrorism.
To begin with, it helps us define terrorism as goal-oriented.
It is violence against innocent people in order to achieve
generally political objectives. This distinguishes terrorism
from other forms of civil disturbance, including urban riots.
As we have found out in the United States and, alas, as you
are discovering here, urban riots express frustration and
rage. They rarely have specific objectives.
Even when terrorists issue no specific demands, as in the
recent hijacking of the Egyptian plane, the goals remain, no
matter how incoherent, vague or extremely broad they may be.
The random bombings of the IRA are designed to drive Britain
from Northern Ireland by, in effect, holding an entire nation
hostage. And surely the hijackers of the Egyptian plane
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The success of terrorism in forcing political change has led
some observers to conclude: terrorism is war. It is a form
of warfare, moreover, in which media exposure is a powerful
weapon.
As a result, we are being encouraged to restrict our coverage
of terrorist actions. Mrs. Thatcher has proclaimed: "We must
try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of
the oxygen of publicity on which they depend." And many
people, including some reporters in the United States, share
her view.
Most of these observers call for voluntary restraint by the
media in covering terrorist actions. But some go so far as to
sanction government control -- censorship, in fact -- should
the media fail to respond.
Of course, the British and American governments have far
different abilities to limit news coverage. American
journalism operates under the First Amendment to our
Constitution. The First Amendment forbids any laws abridging
freedom of the press. We have no prior restraint, nor any
censorship by the government except during actual wartime.
Moreover, our media consists of four private, national
television networks, three national newspapers, countless
magazines and thousands of local newspapers and television
stations -- all independent of the government.
Britain is different in certain important respects. The BBC
is a publicly funded entity that can be influenced by
politicians. Even ITV is regulated by a board apppointed by
the government. There are D notices and an Official Secrets
Act by which the state can control the news to some extent.
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CIA, though acting without its authorization, had planted a
car bomb in Lebanon that killed 80 people.
At the same time, I believe that. the media can help the
government resolve terrorist crises and save lives, even
though it is not our role to do so.
Media coverage of terrorist events can be an insurance policy
for hostages. The minute hostages appear on television, they
may be somewhat safer. By giving the terrorists an identity,
we make them assume more responsibility for their captives.
The government also relies, to some extent, on the news media
for information about certain crises, information that can be
used to resolve them. One government official acknowledged to
me that American news organizations have more resources to
devote to these crises -- in money, people and technology --
than does the State Department. We also sometimes have
greater access to the perpetrators. In the Middle East,
government officials are often sealed in their bunkers.
Frequently terrorists refuse to speak to them. The terrorists
want to talk to reporters.
I believe these factors are important. They have contributed
to the resolution of terrorist crises and have helped save
lives.
But I would quickly add that covering terrorist acts presents
very real and exceedingly complex challenges as well. There
are limits to what the media can and should do.
Three critical issues, in particular, must be addressed. They
relate to covering terrorism, and they also apply to reporting
urban violence, such as we both have experienced. All touch
the central question of how the press can minimize its role as
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And the media, knowing that the authorities intend to help
them obtain the information they need, are much more willing
to cooperate.
In particular, the media are willing to -- and do -- withhold
information that is likely to endanger human life or
jeopardize national security.
During the American Embassy crisis in Iran, for example, one
of our Newsweek reporters became aware that six Americans
known to have been in the embassy were not being held captive
by the Iranians.
He concluded these men must have escaped to the Swedish or
Canadian Embassies. This in fact had occurred. However, we
and some others who also know it did not report the
information because we knew it would put lives in jeopardy.
And in the recent crisis in which a group of Lebanese Shiites
hijacked TWA Flight 847 with 153 hostages aboard, the media
learned -- but did not report -- that one hostage was a member
of the U. S. National Security Agency.
Tragically, however, we in the media have made mistakes. You
may recall that in April 1983, some 60 people were killed in a
bomb attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. At the time, there
was coded radio traffic between Syria, where the operation was
being run, and Iran, which was supporting it.
Alas, one television network and a newspaper columnist
reported that the U.S. government had intercepted the traffic.
Shortly thereafter the traffic ceased. ,This undermined
efforts to capture the terrorist leaders and eliminated a
source of information about future attacks.
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We often think of terrorists as unsophisticated. But many are
media savy. They can and.do arrange their activities to
maximize media exposure andensure that the story is presented
their way. As one terrorist is supposed to have said to his
compatriot: "Don't shoot now. We're not in prime time."
Specifically, terrorists have done all of the following to
influence media coverage:
-- Arrange for press pools.
-- Grant exclusive interviews during which favored
reporters are given carefully selected
information.
-- Hold press conferences in which hostages and
others are made available to the press under
conditions imposed by the captors.
-- Provide videotapes that portray events as the
terrorists wish them to be portrayed.
-- And schedule the release of news and other events
so that television deadlines can be met.
There is a real danger that terrorists not only hijack
airplanes and hostages, but hijack the media as well.
To guard against this, the television networks in our country
rarely -- almost never -- allow terrorists to appear live.
They also resist using videotape provided by terrorists. If
there is no alternative, our commentators continually report
that the material is "terrorist-supplied" so that viewers can
evaluate its veracity and meaning.
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Over the years, the media constantly have been confronted with
attempts at manipulation.- In the days of the Vietnam war, for
example, we would get calls from protest groups saying, "We're
going to pour chicken blood all over the entrance to Dow
Chemical Company. Come cover this event." We didn't. But we
did cover a Buddhist monk who wished to be filmed setting fire
to himself.
How did we make the distinction? Here it was a question of
trivial versus serious intent and result, of low versus high
stakes. Clearly, the suicide was of cataclysmic importance to
the monk.
The point is we generally know when we are being manipulated,
and we've learned better how and where to draw the line,
though the decisions are often difficult.
A few years ago a Croatian terrorist group in a plane demanded
that its statement be printed in several newspapers, including
The Washington Post, before it would release 50 hostages. In
the end, we printed the statement in agate, the smallest type
size we have, in 37 copies of the paper at the end of our
press run. Now I'm not so sure we would accede to this demand
in any form.
Nor do I believe we should put convicted murderers on the air
to find out their political views.
The danger in terrorist crises is that reporters may develop a
Stockholm Syndrome of their own, that they may be pulled into
the terrorist's rhetoric. We may appear to be too respectful
of the perpetrators -- although the fact they may be holding
hostages at gunpoint tends to make us cautious.
That brings me to a third issue challenging the media: How
can we avoid bringing undue pressure on the government to
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Tasteless invasion of privacy can result. The ultimate horror
is the camera that awaits,in ambush to record the family's
reaction to the news of some personal tragedy.
More to the point, there is a real danger that public opinion
can be unjustifiably influenced by exposure to the hostage
relatives and their views.
The nationwide television audience becomes, in a sense, an
extended family. We get to know these people intimately. Our
natural sympathies go out to them. We often come to share
their understandable desire to have their loved ones back at
any cost.
This can force a government's hand. Last May, Israel released
more than 1,000 Arab prisoners in exchange for three Israelis
being held in Lebanon. It was an action that ran counter to
Israeli policy. However, I heard that the appearances of the
families of the Israeli prisoners on television made the
Israeli government think it was a necessity.
I believe the media must be exceedingly careful with the
questions they ask the relatives and, of course, the hostages
themselves. When we ask if they agree with the government's
policy or its handling of the incident, what they would do if
they were in charge, or if they have messages for the
President, we are setting up a predictable tension: Hostages
and their families are, understandably, the most biased of
witnesses. The media must exercise the same standards with
them as they would with any other news source.
A final pitfall for the media is becoming, even inadvertently,
a negotiator during a crisis. But it's tough to avoid.
Simply by asking legitimate questions such as "What are
your demands?" -- the media can become part of the negotiating
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appeared on the nightly news often had been in the morning
paper.
This meant that television news executives had at least some
amount of time in which to reflect, discuss and decide on
whether a story should be broadcast and how it should be
presented.
Today our networks have the technological capability to
present events live -- any time, any place. As a result, the
decisions about what to cover and how to cover are tougher.
And they must be made faster, sometimes on the spot. The
risks of making a mistake rise accordingly.
Intense competition in the news business raises the stakes
even more. The electronic media in the United States live or
die by their ratings, the number of viewers they attract. As
a result, each network wants to be the first with the most on
any big story. It's hard to stay cool in the face of this
pressure.
This has created some unseemly spectacles and poor news
decisions. During the TWA crisis, for example, the U.S.
networks ran promotion campaigns on the air and in print
touting the scoops and exclusives that each had obtained.
This commercialized and trivialized a dangerous and important
event.
The most dangerous potential result of unbridled competition
is what we have come to call the lowest-common-denominator
factor.
I believe that all of the serious, professional media -- print
and electronic, in our country and in yours and indeed around
the world -- are anxious to be as responsible as possible.
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of what they believe is good for people to know. It's
dangerous if we are asked-to become a kind of super-political
agency. Thus I was very sorry to see the BBC give in to
government pressure to censor "Real Lives," even though it may
or may not have been poorly edited.
Ultimately, I believe a terrorist attack is a self-defeating
platform from which to present a case. Terrorists, in effect,
hang themselves whenever they act. They convey hatred,
violence, terror itself. There was no clearer image of what a
terrorist really is than the unforgettable picture of that
crazed man holding a gun to the head of the pilot aboard the
TWA jet. That said it all to me -- and, I believe, to the
world.
Suppressing or rationing the news provides no solution for the
long term. If a government cannot make its case through
democratic means in the face of violence, then I do believe
its policies must be misguided.
Witness the current events taking place in South Africa. The
government has banned television cameras from areas of unrest
and made it difficult for print journalists to report what is
happening. The government may have succeeded in limiting the
news coverage and moving it off the screen and the front page,
but the killing is worse than ever. Censorship won't work in
the long run.
As a former managing editor of The Washington Post recently
said, "Whenever any government attempts to hide its actions,
the assumption will be made that it has something to hide and
what is being hidden is more often than not sinister.
Deception always is dangerous, always found out, and always
boomerangs to cripple the deceivers."
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