‘Terrorist’: loaded word handled with caution

Originally published in Current, July 14, 2003
By Mike Janssen

When should journalists use the word "terrorist?"

That longtime dilemma for reporters became an issue again last month on the website of the National Review--and this time practices at NPR were under fire.

Columnist Alex Safian alleged that the network refuses to label Palestinians who attack Israelis "terrorists." He cited occasions when he said hosts or reporters on NPR hypocritically use terms such as "factions" and "bombers" for the struggle between Israel and Palestine but use "terrorist" to describe attackers in Morocco and Saudi Arabia.

Safian is associate director of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), a group that frequently accuses media outlets of anti-Israel bias and has named NPR a top offender. NPR has always responded that its coverage, while imperfect, is accurate and balanced.

NPR's uneven use of "terror" labels exposes its bias, Safian says. "It's a distinction that I think raises serious questions about their lack of objectivity on this issue," he told Current.

NPR rebuts Safian's claims. Hosts and reporters have indeed called Palestinian attackers terrorists, say Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin and spokeswoman Jessamyn Sarmiento--and not just when paraphrasing Israelis, as Safian claimed.

In a July 6 report, NPR's Linda Gradstein spoke of "family members of Israelis killed in Palestinian terrorist attacks."
But like other news organizations, NPR has wrestled with using "terrorist." The news agency Reuters shuns the term entirely "as part of a longstanding policy to avoid the use of emotive words," according to its website. Safian says CAMERA has also criticized CNN, The Boston Globe and The New York Times about usage.

Journalists have become wary of applying the politicized adjective to fighters who might be labeled "militants" or even "freedom fighters" by people with other views. In a document NPR sends to listeners who question its practices, the network says it avoids using "conclusory or value-laden words" that imply partisanship when reporting on the Middle East.

"While the term 'terrorist' may be accurate in many cases," Dvorkin wrote in a column last year, "it also has an extra-journalistic role in delegitimating one side and affirming the other. It is not NPR's role to do this." Instead, NPR says it has sought to report the facts of violent attacks and let listeners draw their own conclusions.

Yet journalists need not drop "terrorist" if they define the word clearly. The Washington Post uses the term for attackers seeking to perpetuate fear among a population, says assistant foreign editor Tony Reid. "9/11 is a perfect example," he says.

NPR once avoided "terrorist" "because of its highly polemical nature," Dvorkin says, but recently started using it more consistently as violence in the Middle East intensified. Attacks on civilians are terrorism, and reporters use the term when appropriate, he says.

"It's a real word with a real meaning," he says, "and we shouldn't be afraid to use it."