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Reuters Refuses to Use
the Term, 'Terrorist'
If It Looks Like a Duck,
Walks Like a Duck,
and Quacks Like a Duck…
...It's a Duck
By Jake Easton
R A D O K N E W S
Posted: May 16, 2003
ALTHOUGH THE TERM 'Terrorist' clearly defines the actions of the hijackers on September 11, some media organizations apparently don't want to offend the killers by calling them what they are.
Reuters wire service, which bills itself as the world's largest news and television agency, is one of the media groups refusing to use the terms 'terrorist' or 'terrorism' when describing the terrorist attacks on America.
Steven Jukes, Reuters global head of news, explains Reuters reasoning in a memo; "We all know that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter and that Reuters upholds the principle that we do not use the word 'terrorist.' To be frank, it adds little to call the attack on the World Trade Center a terrorist attack."
National Review's Editor at Large, John O'Sullivan, strongly disagreed. "When Reuters decided not to call the perpetrators of the World Trade Center attack 'terrorists,' it took a step towards making people feel less guilty about aiding or sympathizing with such evil. It was a small step, but an unnecessary one. And it should be retracted. What word or phrase, after all, will now Reuters use to describe them? 'Mass murderers,' 'the people who attacked the World Trade Center,' 'militants,' 'guerrillas'?"
Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz said, "To Reuters, there are no terrorists… as of last week, suicide attacks that deliberately kill thousands of innocent civilians cannot even be described as acts of terror." Kurtz adds, "After the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and again after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Reuters allowed the events to be described as acts of terror. But as of last week, even that terminology is banned."
Steven Jukes' comment came just weeks before two Reuters staffers were killed in November 2001 in another vicious attack in Afghanistan.
Reuters' employees Harry Burton, an Australian television cameraman, and Azizullah Haidari, a photographer born in Afghanistan, were among four journalists killed by six armed men identified as Taliban forces.
After killing the journalists, it was reported that one of the gunmen said: "You think the Taliban are finished? We are still in power, and we will have our revenge."
There is still no word from Jukes as to what Reuters will be calling the perpetrators.
Excerpts from the book:
Americans Behaving Badly
by Jake Easton
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