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Coverage of Terrorism
happened is they sat there and said,
“Gee, it’s been a long time since we’ve
run an international story,” and what
this event allows people to do is to sit
there and say, “Okay, we’re back in
business. We can be journalists again.”
Now we’ve got fewer resources,
whether you’re in print or television,
but we can go do our thing.
“Why do they hate us?” is a great
question, but the point is it’s just the
headline, and it allows us to begin the
process of educating people about what
Islam is, what Afghanistan is all about.
There is a lot that people need to know
because all that news has been missing
from the newspapers and from television.
And the things this country has
done in Kyoto and in other places that
have just irritated the hell out of the
rest of the world, and has gone fairly
uncovered by television and, for the
most part, by a lot of print, all of a
sudden it scomes back into play.
Audience member: I’d like to comment
on the question that you raised
when we started, “Why do they hate
us?” It’s a brilliant question to ask,
because that question, apart from dealing
with who are the “they” that hate
us, who are the “us” and, as Rami said,
the hated self, that question is rooted
in the assumption we are the good
guys, so why do they hate us? If you
take it a little further, it is a question of
perception; the perception of America,
uniformly, virtually across the country,
is that we are the good guys, and whatever
we do, however faulty our foreign
policy may be, the actions of that foreign
policy are taken as the actions of
the good guys, and how dare you disagree
with us.
Charles Nesson: Can I add to that?
To me one of the most interesting,
challenging features of this was the
idea that these people who did such
damage had lived with us for extended
periods of time. They saw us up close.
We, who love ourselves, and somehow
assume that we must be loved by anyone
who truly knows us, it must be
misunderstanding. That’s the basis of
this. So you’re saying, if I hear you
right, there is no misunderstanding?
Audience member: There is a vast
gulf of perception between the selfimage
of the people of America and the
image that people outside have of
Americans. Maybe one of the reasons
why this gulf will always remain is because
no attempt is being made to
bridge that gulf. Asking a question like
this, if I was sitting in my newsroom in
the newspaper that I was working for,
I think this is a great device. It is a
device to raise debate; for people to
think about both sides of the question.
If this generates the kind of debate I
think it was intended to generate, then
it’s a great question to ask, because it
goes to the very root of who we are,
and who they think we are, and why
don’t we think alike on that question?
Ellen Hume: I think one of the
things that we’re getting back to now is
that this is a very important moment
for journalism. We are discovering that
it’s a moment when news is important
again, and the questions we ask are
important again. They don’t just have
to be sexual titillation, and they don’t
just have to be entertainment. They
can be real questions. What’s been
missing is the international coverage—
because, frankly, it hasn’t been allowed,
and there hasn’t been space for it even
if smart reporters have struggled to get
this coverage into American media, and
I know they have. The question is, why
does it matter? If we blow off Kyoto,
why does it matter? If a president or
another candidate doesn’t know the
names of his counterparts around the
world, why does it matter? What’s happened
is we have been forced to understand
suddenly that it does matter. If
we can add that idea as we go forward
then there is a real role for journalists.
We’re not just America’s hosts. We’re
the ones who are supposed to help
figure out why it matters, without taking
a point of view. That’s the American
style. We’re not supposed to take a
partisan point of view. That’s an interesting
challenge for all of us.
Charles Nesson: I’m a lawyer. Lawyers
have their art of asking questions.
Journalists would seem also to live by
the question. It’s our weapon in both
professions. Yet you don’t think of
yourselves as lawyers, and you don’t
think like lawyers. What would you say
is the difference? What is it that makes
you a journalist, as opposed to me, a
lawyer, in terms of the way we use the
weapon of the question?
Alex Jones: I’m told that lawyers
never ask a question, at least in court,
that they don’t already know the answer
to, or at least that’s a technique—
that you don’t risk an answer that might
be damaging to you. I think journalists
go about it in a very different way. They
are trying to illicit information that
they have no stake in one way or the
other. Their only interest is in getting
truth.
Lawyers have an advocacy role journalists
don’t or shouldn’t. So when
they’re asking questions, they’re asking
it with a very different purpose. I
don’t think it is wrong to think of the
sort of strategies of questioning as being
similar to those that might be used
in a cross-examination, but I think that
the purpose is somewhat different.
Michel Marriott: Also, the people
we talk to are not compelled to answer.
I can’t subpoena a source like a lawyer
can. Because I know that, I know the
relationship between me and the person
I’m trying to get information from
is so radically different, I have to bring
a whole new set of techniques to try to
get at the truth. Even though I know
the truth is sort of philosophically difficult
sometimes; it can be relative,
circumstantial. But I do kind of go into
this with a very idealistic thought, that
there really is a truth out there that I
can find. If I mine it carefully enough
and persistently enough, it will surface,
and I will recognize it, and I can
capture it, and I can put it in print, and
other people can enjoy it, or respond
to it, whatever.
Murrey Marder: I think the basic
difference is that we see ourselves in
our better moments as seeking the
accountability for the use of power;
whether it’s the city council or a town
sheriff, a state senator or a president,
he or she has public power. We see
Nieman Reports / Winter 2001 41