[Nettime-bold] self-censorship in USA

[Rick Prelinger <footage@panix.com>]

At U.S. Request, Networks Agree to Edit Future bin Laden Tapes

New York Times, October 11, 2001

By BILL CARTER and FELICITY BARRINGER




The five major television news organizations reached a
joint agreement yesterday to follow the suggestion of the
White House and abridge any future videotaped statements
from Osama bin Laden or his followers to remove language
the government considers inflammatory.

The decision, the first time in memory that the networks
had agreed to a joint arrangement to limit their
prospective news coverage, was described by one network
executive as a "patriotic" decision that grew out of a
conference call between the nation's top television news
executives and the White House national security adviser,
Condoleezza Rice, yesterday morning.

The five news organizations, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News,
along with its subsidiary, MSNBC, the Cable News Network
and the Fox News Channel all had broadcast, unedited, a
taped message from Mr. bin Laden on Sunday. On Tuesday, the
all-news cable channels, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, also
carried the complete speech of a spokesmen for Al Qaeda.

Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, indicated in his
news briefing yesterday that Ms. Rice was primarily
concerned that terrorists could be using the broadcasts to
send coded messages to other terrorists, but the network
executives said in interviews that this was only a
secondary consideration.

They said Ms. Rice mainly argued that the tapes enabled Mr.
bin Laden to vent propaganda intended to incite hatred and
potentially kill more Americans.

The executives said that they would broadcast only short
parts of any tape issued by Al Qaeda and would eliminate
any passages containing flowery rhetoric urging violence
against Americans. They agreed to accompany the tapes with
reports providing what they called appropriate context.

They also agreed to avoid repeatedly showing excerpts from
the tapes, which they had previously done in what one
executive described as "video wallpaper."

One network, ABC, said it would limit the use of moving
images from tapes released by Mr. Bin Laden or Al Qaeda,
mostly relying on a still picture from a frame of the tape
and the printed text of whatever message was being
delivered.

The coverage of the aftermath of the terrorists attacks on
New York and the Pentagon has generated intense competitive
pressure among the television news organizations, which has
increased this week as the news divisions labored to find
images to continue documenting American attacks on
Afghanistan.

The tapes have been broadcast by the Arabic language
satellite network Al Jazeera and picked up by the American
networks.

The news executives said they had never previously
consulted one other en masse and come to an agreement on a
policy about coverage.

But they said the current circumstances were unlike any
others they had encountered.

"This is a new situation, a new war and a new kind of
enemy," said Andrew Heyward, the president of CBS News.
"Given the historic events we're enmeshed in, it's
appropriate to explore new ways of fulfilling our
responsibilities to the public."

The presidents of the news divisions all said that Ms. Rice
had not tried to coerce them.

"She was very gentle, very diplomatic, very deft," said
Roger Ailes, the chairman of Fox News.

Walter Isaacson, the chairman of CNN, said, "It was very
useful to hear their information and their thinking." He
added, "After hearing Dr. Rice, we're not going to step on
the land mines she was talking about."

Mr. Isaacson did not specify what information Ms. Rice had
provided that led to the executives' decision.

"Her biggest point," said Neal Shapiro, the president of
NBC News, "was that here was a charismatic speaker who
could arouse anti- American sentiment getting 20 minutes of
air time to spew hatred and urge his followers to kill
Americans."

The notion that Mr. bin Laden was sending messages to
followers through the tapes seemed less than credible to
several of the executives.

"What sense would it make to keep the tapes off the air if
the message could be found transcripted in newspapers or on
the Web?" said one network executive, who spoke on
condition of anonymity. "The videos could also appear on
the Internet. They'd get the message anyway."

The unusual interaction between the White House and
television executives was set up late Tuesday evening when
Ms. Rice called each executive. They gathered in their
offices at 9 a.m. for the conference call.

She spoke with them for about 20 minutes, explaining her
reservations about allowing Mr. bin Laden such access to
American television. A White House official familiar with
the phone call said Ms Rice had two concerns: that the
messages would reach any remaining terrorist cells in the
United States and would also inflame Muslim populations in
such places as Malaysia and the Philippines, who would see
the tapes through international channels of CNN and NBC.

Ms. Rice answered questions. Then she hung up. But the
executives had agreed before the call to stay on the line
and talk among themselves.

The networks were not the first news organizations to
acquiesce to an administration requests to edit or withhold
information.

Leonard Downie Jr., the executive editor of The Washington
Post, said yesterday that "a handful of times" in the past
month, the newspaper's reporting had prompted calls from
administration officials who "raised concerns that a
specific story or more often that certain facts in a
certain story, would compromise national security."

Mr. Downie added, "In some instances we have kept out of
stories certain facts that we agreed could be detrimental
to national security and not instrumental to our readers,
such as methods of intelligence collection."

Clark Hoyt, the Washington editor of Knight Ridder, said
his organization had decided to hold back a report about
"some small units of U.S. special operations forces had
entered Afghanistan and were trying to locate bin Laden"
within two weeks of the attacks on the Pentagon and the
World Trade Center.

Howell Raines, the executive editor of The New York Times,
said that since Sept. 11, Times executives had not had any
conversations with government officials about the handling
of sensitive information.

Mr. Raines said: "Our longstanding practice has been that
if a high government official wants to talk to us about
security issues, we're available for that conversation. We
also would feel free to seek guidance if there was
information in our judgment that might be sensitive."

The networks' decision has not raised serious protests
among television journalists. Ted Koppel, the ABC
"Nightline" anchor, said, "If we want to run some of the
videotape, our understanding is we're still free to do it."


But, Mr. Koppel said, the videotapes by and large have not
been compelling enough for long showings.

The CBS anchor, Dan Rather, said: "By nature and
experience, I'm always wary when the government seeks in
any way to have a hand in editorial decisions. But this is
an extraordinary time. In the context of this time, the
conversation as I understand it seems reasonable on both
sides."

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/11/national/11TUBE.html?ex=1003781728&ei=1&en=95d821e7eb3a990d



Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
-- 

Rick Prelinger
Prelinger Archives   http://www.prelinger.com
P.O. Box 590622, San Francisco, Calif. 94159-0622
+1 415 750-0445      Fax: +1 415 750-0607
footage@panix.com

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