It’s about freedom. Our freedom.
We all want to be free to open our mail without blinking, free to board a plane without waiting, free to enter a courthouse without being searched. Free to live without fear.
Although we want those things, they aren’t freedoms guaranteed to us by our Constitution. Not like the freedom of the press.
That’s why the White House request to limit coverage of Osama bin Laden is highly troublesome to newspapers, including the Akron Beacon Journal. It’s an abridgment of one of our most cherished rights.
Last week, the White House asked newspapers, including the Beacon Journal, to stop printing the full text of comments from bin Laden. They might contain secret messages that would help the enemy, it was said, though there is no evidence this has happened.
Television networks complied with the request to stop airing unedited bin Laden tapes. But many newspapers, including the Beacon Journal, emphatically declined to promise to limit bin Laden’s words.
For many newspapers, it was seen as an attempt at “back-door censorship.”
For Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary, it was simply a request for self-censorship.
For Jan Leach, Beacon Journal editor, it was a step in the wrong direction.
“Newspapers that are fighting for unfettered access to information are acting on behalf of readers,” Leach said. “We believe that an unrestricted flow of information is best for readers.”
Information is needed in times of crisis, especially in times of war. That’s why news readership and TV viewership have risen dramatically in the past month. Information is what helps us make smart decisions about our future and our government. Censorship hinders that.
“Government needs a watchdog,” Leach said. “Through the media, the people have access to government.”
From Al Cross, president of the Society of Professional Journalists: “Americans are intelligent enough to sort propaganda from truth, and they ought to have the opportunity to do so”.
From Clark Hoyt, who is in charge of national reporting for Knight Ridder, parent company of the Beacon Journal:
“Americans should know what they are up against in the war on terrorism. One of our most cherished values as a free society is that a fully informed citizenry will make wise choices, including about how to meet the new challenge of terrorism.”
Carried to its extreme, no quote from bin Laden or any of his associates could ever be used because there would be no way of knowing which words contained a coded message.
From a practical standpoint, anything contained in the Beacon Journal would be an English translation from Arabic, meaning any coded message likely would be lost in the translation. Besides, there are better ways for bin Laden to communicate with his followers.
On Oct. 8, when the Beacon Journal printed the Associated Press’ full transcript of bin Laden’s video statement, I received three types of reactions. First, people wanted to know why the words in the paper were different from the ones seen on television. That was a matter of different translations.
Second, some callers were upset, even incensed, that bin Laden’s words were given treatment similar to President Bush’s speech.
Finally, I asked members of the Beacon Journal Readers Advisory Panel whether the full-text transcripts were helpful. There was general agreement that they wanted to see exactly what each of the key players had to say, including bid Laden.
“Just give me the information and I’ll make up my own mind what’s right,” is how panel member Roberta Johnson-Kea of Akron summed up the group’s feelings.
“Readers are smart about ferreting out propaganda,” Beacon Journal Editor Leach said. “They don’t need the government to tell them what they should or shouldn’t be reading.”
No one in the media wants to risk national security by unwittingly helping the enemy. If anything, the need to be accurate and responsible grows at times like this. Imagine the public’s wrath if the media caused unnecessary panic or, much worse, American casualties.
However, the issue is broader than bin Laden’s speeches and older than Sept. 11.
A coalition of media representatives has been negotiating with Pentagon officials for access to American troops and the ability to report firsthand on military activities.
Many in the media remember the 1991 Gulf War, when it later was shown that some of the so-called “smart bombs” weren’t quite as accurate as the government said during the conflict.
Misleading the press, and therefore the public, is nothing new. Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara has written about spreading lies during the Vietnam War in his book In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. “We were wrong, terribly wrong,” McNamara says in the book.
Toe the line, is what government told the media then. Toe the line is what’s being said now.
The Pentagon now screens nearly all coverage from the battle lines in Afghanistan. When used in the Beacon Journal, these items contain a notation that the information was censored by the military.
“We want our readers to know when the information they see in the paper is freely obtained and when it has the stamp of government censorship,” Leach said.
One big difference between this war and previous ones is that this one also involves attacks on our home soil, which has produced a fear-induced willingness by many Americans to rubber-stamp government decisions.
It also has led to calls from people who want less information instead of more, people who want to win this war more than they want to protect their freedom.
Sadly, that’s also the goal of the terrorists.
