Violence in the Middle East brought protests from readers last week who insisted The San Diego Union-Tribune should identify Palestinians involved in attacks on Israelis as terrorists. Other readers objected to the wrenching photos on the front page Thursday of the two children, one in Jerusalem and the other in Gaza City, who had been injured in attacks.
Some readers objected because Palestinians were called militants in headlines last Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. They should have been called what they were — terrorists, readers insisted.
Union-Tribune headline writers use “militants” in an effort to remain neutral in the the Palestinian-Israeli violence, said Lora Cicalo, news editor. There was reference to “terrorists” in Thursday`s Union-Tribune article by Ravi Nessman of The Associated Press who quoted Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as saying Israel will “continue to pursue until the end the terrorists and those that send them.”
An article Wednesday said Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas called an attempt to kill the leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas an act of terrorism. The same stories made reference to Israeli officials citing 72 Hamas-sponsored terror attacks.
Each side uses the terms terrorism or terrorists to characterize the acts of the other but considers the actions taken by its side to be defensive and justified. In fact, Cicalo said, people on both sides of the conflict want the other to be labeled as terrorists.
A check of two Israeli newspapers, Harretz in Tel Aviv, and the Jerusalem Post showed that Harretz called Palestinians responsible for the attacks militants. The Post abandoned neutrality and called them terrorists.
Some readers were upset because the Union-Tribune published two photos of children injured in the attacks. One showed a bleeding Israeli girl who was wounded in an explosion on a bus in Jerusalem. The other showed a 3-year-old Palestinian girl screaming in pain as she was being treated by doctors following the Israeli missile attack in Gaza City.
One caller called the photos sensational. Others protested because their children saw the photos. I found them disturbing, and in fact, unconsciously averted my eyes while reading the front page Thursday morning. The photos were extremely difficult for adults, let alone children.
But that being said, together those photographs conveyed the horror happening in the Middle East. The Union-Tribune`s mission is to report the news, not to avoid the reality of what is happening. And like it or not, those photos conveyed the anguish of the Middle East that thousands of words could not. They weren`t pretty, but they were news.
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Reader John Boyle had a question. “Why do so many articles contain the ages of people when age is immaterial to the subject matter?” he asked in an e-mail. “I can see noting that a college graduate is 13 years old or that a 65-year-old woman has had sextuplets but generally age is unimportant.”
Before I responded, I looked up John Boyle in the phone book. The San Diego directory listed six; none at the address he provided. There also were four listings for “J. Boyle” with no addresses and one for “J.K. Boyle” in Chula Vista. As I explained to him, ages are included to help further identify people. In fact, at one time, newspapers listed not only ages but home addresses for everyone mentioned in an article, including the editor of the newspaper.
Using home addresses was abandoned decades ago, when security became an issue. Age, when available, however, remains as an element to help identify people for readers. That way, if you know a John Doe and you read John Doe, 22, won the Lottery, you will realize it can`t be your neighbor who is about 30 years older.
Occasionally, when a person`s name appears in a news article, someone with the same name calls me to protest. “Would you write an article saying that Joe Blow suspected of whatever crime is not me, Joe Blow, an honest businessman?” As long as the person was correctly identified in the article, there would be no correction or no clarification.
In response to my explanation, Boyle identified himself as John Boyle, 61, of Hillcrest. He said he was not one of the six John Boyles listed in the phone directory. He was one of the J. Boyles. To be specific, his name is John J. Boyle.
