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NIEMAN REPORTS THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION FOR JOURNALISM AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY VOL.55 NO.4 WINTER 2001 Five Dollars Coverage of Terrorism ‘This is one of my favorite pictures, taken a block away from Ground Zero on the second day. This is a cook who works in a restaurant. What is interesting to me about this picture, aside from what it depicts, is how the human experience leaves a trace on body language that one could never invent theatrically. It never lies.’ —Peter Turnley, photographer. Women and Journalism: International Perspectives “…to promote and elevate the standards of journalism” —Agnes Wahl Nieman, the benefactor of the Nieman Foundation. Vol. 55 No. 4 NIEMAN REPORTS Winter 2001 THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION FOR JOURNALISM AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY Publisher Bob Giles Editor Melissa Ludtke Assistant Editor Lois Fiore Editorial Assistant Paul Wirth Design Editor Deborah Smiley Business Manager Cheryl Scantlebury Nieman Reports (USPS #430-650) is published Please address all subscription correspondence to in March, June, September and December One Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-2098 by the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, and change of address information to One Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-2098. P.O. Box 4951, Manchester, NH 03108. ISSN Number 0028-9817 Telephone: (617) 495-2237 Internet Address (Business): Second-class postage paid [email protected] at Boston, Massachusetts, and additional entries. Internet Address (Editorial): [email protected] POSTMASTER: Send address changes to WWW address: Nieman Reports, http://www.Nieman.Harvard.edu P.O. Box 4951, Manchester, NH 03108. Copyright 2001 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Subcription $20 a year, $35 for two years; add $10 per year for foreign airmail. Single copies $5. Back copies are available from the Nieman office. Vol. 55 No. 4 NIEMAN REPORTS Winter 2001 THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION FOR JOURNALISM AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY 4 Coverage of Terrorism 6 September 11, 2001: Telling Stories Visually BY PETER TURNLEY 10 Language Matters as We Try to Describe What Happened BY BEVERLY WALL 11 Secrecy and the Press in a Time of War BY TED GUP 13 The Pentagon and the Press BY STANLEY W. CLOUD 16 The Dangers of Disinformation in the War on Terrorism BY MAUD S. BEELMAN 18 President Harry Truman Enlisted Journalists in the Cold War BY NANCY BERNHARD 19 Is the Press Up to the Task of Reporting These Stories? BY JAMES BAMFORD 22 The Unreported Threat in Coverage of Anthrax BY PHILIP CAPER 24 Reporting International News in a Serious Way BY WILLIAM F. WOO 25 Training Journalists to Report Safely in Hostile Environments BY JOHN OWEN 28 Freelancers’ Vital Role in International Reporting BY NATE THAYER 31 Press Access to Satellite Images is a Casualty in This War BY CHRISTOPHER SIMPSON 35 Using Graphics to Tell Stories BY JOANNE MILLER 37 Watchdog Journalism: An Instrument of Democracy COMMENTS BY BOB GILES AND MURREY MARDER 39 Asking Probing Questions in a Time of National Crisis JOURNALISTS’ PANEL MODERATED BY CHARLES NESSON 44 Images of a Shattered City BY STAN GROSSFELD 47 Reporting to a Western Audience About the Islamic World BY GENEIVE ABDO 49 Images From Another War in Afghanistan BY DAVID B. EDWARDS 52 Revealing Beauty in the Harshness of War BY REZA 53 Independent Media Try to be Balanced and Fair in Their Coverage BY FAZAL QURESHI 55 Stories the Media Decide Not to Tell BY ABDELMAGID MAZEN 57 Understanding the ‘Why’ of September 11 BY DANNY SCHECHTER 59 America: A Bully Wreaking Havoc on the Poor BY DALE FUCHS Cover photo by Peter Turnley.© 61 Women and Journalism 63 Reporting on Gender in Journalism BY MARGARET GALLAGHER 65 Worldwoman Stretches Its Reach to Several Continents BY LESLEY RIDDOCH 68 In Nigerian Newspapers, Women Are Seen, Not Heard BY CHRISTINE ANYANWU 72 An Absence of Women BY PIPPA GREEN 75 Community Radio Provides Women a Way to Have Their Voices Heard BY L. MUTHONI WANYEKI 76 Changing the Way Women’s Lives Are Portrayed BY LETTIE LONGWE 78 ‘Who Makes the News?’ BY TERESITA HERMANO AND ANNA TURLEY 80 In Poland, Women Run the Largest News Organization BY PEGGY SIMPSON 82 Reporting on War, Listening to Women BY RATIH HARDJONO 85 Storming the Citadel of Hard News Coverage BY AMMU JOSEPH 88 Media Don’t Portray the Realities of Women’s Lives BY SAKUNTALA NARASIMHAN 90 Bringing Women’s Stories to a Reluctant Mainstream Press BY ANGANA PAREKH 92 In Pakistan, Journalists Maintain Women’s Lesser Status BY MASSOUD ANSARI 94 ‘Visual Voices’: Photos From China 97 The Varied Pace of Women’s Progress BY BETTINA PETERS 100 Women Bring a Certain Look and Feeling to News BY VERONICA LOPEZ 103 Between the Rhetoric of Equality and the Harsh Reality BY BLANCA ROSALES 105 Machismo Is Only One Obstacle Women Journalists Face BY MARÍA CRISTINA CABALLERO 108 Breaking Down Barriers in the Arab Media BY NAOMI SAKR 110 Moving Coverage Beyond a Woman’s Veil BY NAGHMEH SOHRABI 3 Curator’s Corner Reporting Clashes With Government Policies BY BOB GILES 113 Nieman Notes 113 Interactivity Creates a Different Kind of Journalism BY TOM ASHBROOK 114 Class Notes COMPILED BY LOIS FIORE 118 End Note: Living Treasures BY STEVE NORTHUP 2 Nieman Reports / Winter 2001 Curator’s Corner Reporting Clashes With Government Policies ‘The watchdog role of the press is never more vital than during a national crisis.’ By Bob Giles hen the United States is on a war footing, there is Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says, “Open and a tendency to set aside many of our traditional independent reporting will be the principal means of cover- Wchecks and balances by a well-intentioned instinct age of U.S. military operations.” Yet the government contin- for national unity. ues to seek ways to deny Americans information. It is Congress gives the President what he says he needs, with blocking news media access to satellite images of Afghani- fewer questions asked. At the Pentagon and in media rela- stan and neighboring countries, including images that would tions offices around the capital, secrecy emerges as a prac- enable journalists to evaluate reports of bomb damage that tice, if not a policy. Voices of dissent fall silent. Public debate killed civilians. Pentagon staffers who discuss military opera- is avoided. Americans are told to watch what they say. tions with news media have been told that they are breaking Essential among many forms of patriotism that emerge in federal criminal law. a time of national crisis is the duty of the press to be watchful The administration views this as a public relations war as over the exercise of power. With Congress on the sidelines, well as a military war. It has chosen to deny Americans access there is no forum for a national debate on our military and to what it interprets as Taliban or Al Qaeda propaganda, foreign policy. The press remains the single institution free rather than favoring openness in the belief that American to independently probe for facts the government wants to ideas and ideals will prevail. At the start of the war, Voice of shield from American citizens. America was bullied into canceling a scheduled broadcast of During the cold war, this nation paid a heavy price for an exclusive interview with Mullah Mohammed Omar, the secrecy and deception used to justify military actions and for leader of Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban and a defender of a pliant press willing to censor itself or unwilling to chal- Osama bin Laden. And the administration persuaded televi- lenge the official version of events. sion news organizations to engage in self-censorship that Nieman Reports is devoting much of this issue to an deprived the public of a newsworthy statement by Osama examination of reporting on terrorism, not only to demon- bin Laden. Major daily newspapers and wire services wrote strate that it is an enormously difficult journalistic assign- stories about the statement, but failed to print a text giving ment but also to explore and explain how certain practices readers a fuller context of his message. of the U.S. government are denying citizens important President Bush’s regrettable decision to try accused ter- information. rorists in secret before military tribunals would deprive the The administration’s impulse for controlling information world of the evidence presented against bin Laden and his is complicated by the nature of combat in Afghanistan. As aides and risks undermining the legitimacy of any verdict. cities and major regions of that country come under control When the war against terrorism goes well, the public is of the anti-Taliban forces, the western press (though assum- more likely to accept official explanations that national ing great risk) can move more freely and provide eyewitness security interests justify exceptions to transparency and accounts and images of how the war is being fought. accountability. Opinion surveys show that the public is This mobility of journalists—aided by advances in tech- content to allow the Pentagon to decide what is news. Thus, nology, such as videophones—has undercut one of the the mood of the country seems resigned to the possibility Pentagon’s major strategies for managing how the press that the search for truth once again is an acceptable casualty report the war: the Department of Defense National Media in this time of war. Pool. Institutionalized pool coverage was used in the Gulf The watchdog role of the press is never more vital than War, effectively limiting independent movement by U.S. during a national crisis. It is an unpopular role when the journalists. After the war, frustrated representatives of U.S. approval ratings of the President are so high or when the news organizations tried to negotiate a better arrangement Pentagon asserts that the national interest requires secrecy.