CBC radio has an interesting report on wire services (Reuters, AP) and the altering of their material by local news outlets. It’s available here in RealPlayer.
This CBC report is in response to the Reuters-CanWest squabble over use of the term ‘terrorist’ in wire reports from Israel and Iraq (see more on that here). The Reuters editor in the radio clip expresses concern for the ‘serious consequences’ if ‘people in the Mideast’ were to believe that Reuters calls such people ‘terrorists.’
Though the CBC report focuses on the ethics of CanWest’s editing, the more striking thing to come out of all this is Reuters’ open acknowlegement that their reporters/editors are intimidated into using ‘neutral’ language to describe those who wantonly kill innocent civilians.
In every other area, western journalists pride themselves on boldly ‘telling it as is,’ regardless of their subjects’ reactions. So why do wire editors bend over backwards to appease Islamic terrorists?
This is remarkably similar to CNN’s Iraqi cover-up from last year, when CNN admited that their knowledge of murder, torture, and planned assassinations in Saddam’s Iraq was suppressed in order to maintain CNN’s Baghdad bureau. We asked back then:
Now that this senior CNN executive has come clean, it leaves us wondering: In what other regions ruled by terrorist dictators do the media toe the party line so as to remain in good stead?
It seems we have our answer.
