With the intense fighting going on in the West Bank, NPR has received hundreds of emails and phone calls insisting that NPR’s descriptions of the Israelis or the Palestinians are inaccurate and biased.
Some pro-Israeli supporters insist that no other word but “terrorist” can accurate describe the Palestinians.
But pro-Palestinian listeners say that this is a struggle of national liberation. They say their side should be called “resistance fighters”, “guerillas”, even “soldiers.” They also insist that the Israeli army actions in the West Bank are “aggressions” or “incursions” while the pro-Israel listeners want NPR to call it a “defensive action” or “anti-terrorist sweep”.
Israeli “Forces” or “Soldiers”
NPR refers to Israeli forces in relatively straight-forward ways: they are uniformed combatants and they are referred to unambiguously as Israeli forces or soldiers. Sometimes the reference is to the Israelis’ own description for their army: the Israel Defense Forces.
But on the Palestinian side, the phrasing enters a more complicated, emotional and politically charged area.
Since 9/11, most U.S. journalists have felt comfortable in describing what happened in New York, at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania as a “terrorist attack” against the United States.
But many journalists feel less comfortable in referring to events in the Middle East in the same way and using the same standards.
Why the dichotomy?
Palestinian “Terrorists” or “Gunmen”
Are the Palestinian fighters “terrorists” or “gunmen”? Are there times when Palestinian fighters are committing “terrorist” acts or simply engaging in military actions?
One listener says that the term “gunman” has a noble American connotation based in our history of opening up the west. He feels that NPR should not apply the term in any negative manner.
Other listeners say that the Palestinians are resistance fighters and that NPR should refer to them as “guerrillas” in the same way that many U.S. journalists once referred to the Viet Cong.
But still other listeners object to what appears to be a sympathetic and overly noble description of the Palestinians and their attacks on Israeli civilians.
If the term “terrorist” is openly negative, (especially since 9/11), are the other nouns too neutral in describing those who commit despicable acts against civilians?
NPR, along with most other U.S. media organizations has largely avoided the first term (“terrorist”).
Pejorative or Neutral?
“Terrorist” has a pejorative connotation. It is also the preferred description used by the Israeli government and some conservative commentators to all acts committed against Israeli civilians and military.
So in an effort to avoid appearing to have adopted the Israeli government’s lexicon, journalists have scrambled to find another, more neutral sets of descriptions. But in the process, pro-Israel supporters have charged journalists with being politically correct and pro-Palestinian.
What other euphemism have journalists employed?
Sometime, the more neutral term of “militant” is applied.
For many pro-Israel listeners, this word choice is simply too pallid. It resonates with the word “activist” inferring that what is happening in the Middle East is equivalent to union organizing or lobbying Congress. It also conveys a certain distance and respect that many listeners object to.
What about “suicide bombers”? If they are referred to as “martyrs” does that give them a dignity that in a western cultural context is inappropriate and undeserved?
The BBC Language Guide
The experience of the BBC may be a useful guide. That broadcaster had some serious challenges in dealing with a spate of internal terrorism in the 1970s and 80s. In the early 1980s, the Thatcher Government even went so far as to ban the IRA from being interviewed by the BBC. Pictures were allowed; actual voices were not.
So as a government funded public broadcaster, the BBC had to find a balance between its managerial duty to the government that pays for it and its journalistic obligation to the listeners and viewers.
The BBC’s language guidelines (1996) are instructive. The section on “Terrorism and National Security” seems to have found that balance and reads in part:
2. Language and Terminology
We must not adopt terrorist language as though it were our own. Terrorist groups use military and judicial terms to give themselves status: If we report their use of words like “volunteer”, “execute”, “liberate”, “court martial” and so on, we should attribute them.
Reporting terrorist violence is an area which particularly tests our international services. Our credibility is severely undermined if international audiences detect a bias for or against those involved. Neutral language is a key: even the word “terrorist” can appear judgmental in part of the world where there is no clear consensus about the legitimacy of militant political groups.
Thus the search for a noun that is both accurate and unaffiliated. Like other issues around the Middle East, this one is also fraught.
Whose Phrase Can Be Used?
The use or ownership of language is key to reporting in this as in all other issues where there is controversy. If NPR’s reporting is to have any role in providing non-partisan, explanatory journalism, then nouns and adjective must be chosen with care and with nuance.
Sadly, nouns and adjectives are also weapons in this war. While the term “terrorist” may be accurate in many cases, it also has an extra-journalistic role in delegitimating one side and affirming the other. It is not NPR’s role to do this. NPR has an obligation to provide responsible and reliable reporting by describing with accuracy and fairness events that listeners may choose to endorse or deplore as they see fit.
In my opinion, that is exactly what NPR has done. Its reporters and editors have taken great care in using descriptors accurately. Whatever care NPR has taken will never be sufficient for many of the partisans in this story.
Journalists in general and NPR journalists in particular are left with few satisfactory choices about neutral nouns. All the good ones seem to have already been taken by one side or the other.
It is true that in this issue, NPR has occasionally been inconsistent. But inconsistency may simply be an accurate reflection of the difficult choices in reporting this terrible story… a story that evokes strong emotions and allows for few easy answers or journalistic shortcuts.
