Promoted to Headline (H3) on 7/13/09:
NPR (National Public Radio) has been criticized lately for using phrases like "harsh interrogation techniques" to describe the American use of waterboarding under the Bush administration. (Glenn Greenwald has been among those critics.)
Recently the Ombudsman for NPR, Alicia C. Shepard, responded to critics in an article that appears at
Here is a crucial passage from that article. (I will follow it with a brief comment of my own.)
There has been no clear consensus on what constitutes torture, noted Brian Duffy, NPR's former managing editor in late April.
"President Bush said, 'We do not torture -- period.' Yet water-boarding and several other tactics not approved in the Army Field Manual were approved by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) during his administration," said Duffy.
"During his confirmation hearings, Attorney General-designate Eric Holder said clearly that water-boarding was torture, and President Obama has said the same thing," he continued. "But the Obama Administration has issued no overarching statement on the issue, instead rescinding approval for CIA interrogators to use water-boarding and the other tactics the Bush administration approved but not making clear which tactics it does approve."
NPR decided to not use the term "torture" to describe techniques such as water-boarding but instead uses "harsh interrogation tactics," Duffy told me.
I recognize that it's frustrating for some listeners to have NPR not use the word torture to describe certain practices that seem barbaric. But the role of a news organization is not to choose sides in this or any debate. People have different definitions of torture and different feelings about what constitutes torture. NPR's job is to give listeners all perspectives, and present the news as detailed as possible and put it in context.
"I understand the desire to 'call a spade a spade,' but it is not for journalists to start labeling specific practices torture," said Duffy. "That's what the debate is about -- what constitutes torture?"
To me, it makes more sense to describe the techniques and skip the characterization. For example, reporters could say that the U.S. military poured water down a detainee's mouth and nostrils for 40 seconds. Or they could detail such self-explanatory techniques as forcing detainees into cramped confines crawling with insects, or forced to stand for hours along side a wall.
A basic rule of vivid writing is: "Show, Don't Tell."
******************
I actually feel some sympathy for both sides of this dilemma, but ultimately, even though the dilemma is real, one of those sides is not worthy.
The side for which my sympathetic feelings are most strained are those for NPR's feeling of a need to remain neutral in a battle that divides our major parties.
It should be noted, however, that the statement that "the role of a news organization is not to choose sides in this or any debate," is way too overdrawn. The American Nazi Party may declare that the Holocaust never happened, but NPR does not feel compelled to speak of the "alleged Holocaust." Nor, when speaking of our satellites going around the earth, does NPR feel it must honor the views of the Flat Earth Society.
It's not all debates that NPR wishes not to take sides on, but only those between our major political parties and the sizeable portions of the American public they bring into alignment with their declared positions.
It's understandable, to me, that this would place a major news organization --particularly one like NPR that is partially funded with public money, and is not privately owned-- in a dilemma.
But it seems deplorable if all it takes to get NPR to become "neutral" is for one of our political parties to declare that "Black is White, and Up is Down."
Nor does it seem that "show" don't "tell" suffices to solve the problem. It is true that a "showing" of how American courts and treaties have considered this issue settled, until the Bushites declared that "black is white," would enable the listener to understand what has happened, and that Bush's declaration "We do not torture" was false. But it does not really suffice as a solution because this history cannot be recapitulated every time the issue of waterboarding comes up.
Nor can people be trusted to understand the truth of the matter just by describing the procedure. The judgments of history on waterboarding represent experience and knowledge that individuals simply cannot be expected to match. Recall the recent case of the conservative talk radio guy who submitted himself to waterboarding, convinced that it was NOT torture, only to be stunned and traumatized by the experience and to declare that it "absolutely" WAS torture.
So NPR truly does have a dilemma, and no easy solutions available to it. It can stick with "white is white," even if a powerful political party says otherwise. Or it can be "neutral," because the lies of that political party mean there is no "clear consensus" on the issue (as that Mr. Duffy of NPR blandly and flabbily states).
The trouble is, this "neutrality" isn't really all that neutral. It DOES lend legitimacy to the side with an illegitimate position.
It seems that "mainstream" news organizations --and by "mainstream" I mean those who wish to appear to everyone not to be aligned with one major party against another-- are indeed put into a difficult spot if, as has happened lately, one of our political parties becomes dominated by the lie, and its followers are easily persuaded by those lies.
Perhaps the solution would be for NPR to say, "waterboarding, which the Bush administration declares is not torture but the rest of the world says is torture." That would be a way of just "reporting" without "taking sides."
Andrew Bard Schmookler's website
www.nonesoblind.org is devoted to understanding the roots of America's present moral crisis and the means by which the urgent challenge of this dangerous moment can be met. Dr. (
more...)
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
No comments:
Post a Comment