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Fox:
Civilian Casualties Not News
BY
FAIRNESS & ACCURACY IN REPORTING
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Network
news outlets have reported stories about civilian casualties in Afghanistan with
caution, often noting that Taliban claims are nearly impossible to verify. But
many outlets show no inclination to be equally careful when evaluating the
Pentagon's line on casualties.
CNN,
for example, has ordered reporters to frame reports of civilian deaths with
reminders that "the Pentagon has repeatedly stressed that it is trying to
minimize" such casualties, and that "the Taliban regime continues to
harbor terrorists who are connected to the September 11 attacks that claimed
thousands of innocent lives in the U.S."
The
host of Fox News Channel's "Special Report with Brit Hume" (11/5/01)
recently wondered why journalists should bother covering civilian deaths at all.
"The question I have," said Hume, "is civilian casualties are
historically, by definition, a part of war, really.
Should they be as big news as they've been?"
The
idea that civilian casualties have been "big news" in the U.S. is
questionable, but the Fox pundits more or less agreed with Hume.
Mara
Liasson from National Public Radio was direct: "No. Look, war is about
killing people. Civilian casualties are unavoidable." Liasson added that
she thought what was missing from television coverage was "a message from
the U.S. government that says we are trying to minimize them, but the Taliban
isn't, and is putting their tanks in mosques, and themselves among women and
children." (Of course, anyone who has watched much TV news knows that this
information is included in virtually every report.)
Fox
pundit and U.S. News & World Report columnist Michael Barone echoed Hume's
earlier remarks: "I think the real problem here is that this is poor news
judgment on the part of some of these news organizations. Civilian casualties
are not, as Mara says, news.
The fact is that they accompany wars."
If
journalists shouldn't cover civilian deaths because they are a normal part of
war, does that principle apply to all war coverage? Dropping bombs is also
standard procedure in a war; will Fox stop reporting airstrikes?
Fox's
marketing slogan is "We report, you decide," but these Fox pundits
have decided for you that some deaths aren't worth reporting. Then again, being
honest journalists might not be the first order of business. As Hume told the
New York Times, "Look, neutrality as a general principle is an appropriate
concept for journalists who are covering institutions of some comparable
quality.... This is a conflict between the United States and murdering
barbarians."
With
both Fox and CNN crusading against coverage of civilian deaths in Afghanistan,
it's little wonder that self-censorship is taking place at smaller outlets.
A memo circulated at the Panama City (Fla.) News Herald and leaked to Jim
Romenesko's Media News warned editors:
"DO
NOT USE photos on Page 1A showing civilian casualties from the U.S. war on
Afghanistan. Our sister paper in Fort Walton Beach has done so and received
hundreds and hundreds of threatening e-mails and the like.... DO NOT USE wire
stories which lead with civilian casualties from the U.S. war on Afghanistan.
They should be mentioned further down in the story. If the story needs
rewriting to play down the civilian casualties, DO IT. The only exception is
if the U.S. hits an orphanage, school or similar facility and kills scores or
hundreds of children."
This
policy of consistently burying the facts about the impact of the war on
Afghanistan must make the pundits at Fox proud.
But journalists who care about the principles of the profession should be
embarrassed.
ACTION:
Please let Fox anchor Brit Hume know that the deaths of civilians in
Afghanistan are worth covering --- just like the deaths of civilians in the
World Trade Center were worth covering.
CONTACT:
Brit Hume
Managing Editor & Anchor, "Special Report with Brit Hume"
Phone: 1-888-369-4762
mailto:special@foxnews.com
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