Beckett Ch. 4

Ch 4. Fighting Evil
(Terror, Community and Networked Journalism)

In this chapter, Beckett brings up the challenge that terrorism brings to the media and how he thinks that Networked Journalism can help conquer some of the issues that come along with terrorism in the news. One of the first points he makes is that the media needs to be able to remain objective, even when dealing with terrorism by "giving a voice to those hurt by terror and those driven to use it" (128). Essentially, Beckett says that the media needs to learn more about terrorist communities and make an effort to understand them in order to get accurate stories and attempt to stop terrorists.

Some challenges that journalists face while dealing with terrorism, according to Beckett, are that journalists need to realize that they actually play a role in the terror process, they need to realize that they play a role in portraying how certain terrorist communities are viewed, and they need to be able to respond to terrorism in a responsible way. The media needs to be "independent, virile, and critical" but it can't "leave a trail of anger and distrust in its wake" (131). There is a fine line when dealing with terrorism, and a balance needs to be reached, and Beckett believes that Networked Journalism will be helpful in this solution.

The example that Beckett uses to discuss these challenges is the story of Misbah Rana, a 12 year-old Pakistani girl who traveled from Scotland to Pakistan to live with her father. When the story first came out, journalists said that she had been abducted by her father and taken to Pakistan not by her own free will, but it was soon revealed that she had gone voluntarily and that all of the media sources had gotten it wrong. Beckett attributes this huge mistake to bias (or "Islamophobia") but also to just plain ignorance and bad journalism. Journalists assumed that she was abducted just because the parties involved were Muslim. Every media source that wrongly covered the story had to quickly cover up and apologize for their mistakes. We have been talking about trust recently, and a situation like this is detrimental to the media in terms of the level of trust they have with their audience.

Although I somewhat agree with Beckett that Networked Journalism could help the media deal with terrorism, I also think it hurt. With blogging and videos and every other type of online journalism, there is more room for bias and ignorance in the news. The video below is of suicide bomber Mohammad Sidque Kahn telling the U.S. why he did what he did. I guess it could be argued that this video being available to the world is a good thing because it helps people understand better, but I think it can only cause uproar and controversy.



Another disturbing video is that of the children's TV show Tomorrow's Pioneers on Al-Aqsa TV, discussed by Beckett. Personally, I was shocked by this video, mostly because of the involvement of the child.


Questions

• Do you agree with Beckett that Networked Journalism can help the media deal with terrorism? If so, how do you think it can? If not, why?
• How have news sources such as ITV News attempted to help deal with terrorism in terms of replacing fragmentation with integration?
• During the cartoon scandal, the news station that Beckett worked for decided not to show clear images of the cartoons because "the onscreen value of showing the cartoons was not worth the obvious offense that would be caused." Do you think this was a good decision? Why or why not?