Normalising Terror
How the British media are failing the public
The journalistic coverage of the terrorist incident in London confirms a pattern that first emerged after the Paris attacks in January 2015 and gradually became more prominent after each subsequent attack. That pattern is the shift of media and public attention away from the root causes of terrorism — and possible ways of countering it — to expressions of solidarity and the management of emotions, through symbols, candles, flowers, one-minute silences, peace gatherings, remembrance ceremonies and the use of temporary profile pictures and filters in social media. In that way, the phenomenon of terrorism is taken out of the field of politics and into an apolitical field of silence.
This shift is convenient for the government because it absolves it from uncomfortable questions regarding a complex, multi-layered phenomenon, as well as the counterterrorism strategy followed. However, it is also convenient for the media. As the January 2015 attack escalated into a stand-off between police and the Charlie Hebdo shooters at a plant outside Paris, the BBC spent a considerable amount of its coverage on reading out tweets from viewers, celebrities and politicians. As major news organisations have dramatically reduced the number of foreign correspondents and bureaus abroad, social media activity is used as an effective substitute: it is free and journalists don’t even have to leave the newsroom; in fact, trained journalists are not even needed as anyone can read out a Twitter feed. It goes without saying that the postmodern hype surrounding a terrorist attack constitutes neither actual journalism, nor a meaningful act of politics; but it sells, in the same way that listener phone-ins substituted original content on radio.
At the same time as this shift in media focus, we are also observing a shift in the framing and response to the attacks, both by the government and the public. “We are not afraid” quickly became the dominant message accepted and shared by the overwhelming majority of social media users, while many politicians and pundits are trying to understate the impact and importance of these terrorist attacks, engaging in quite bizarre comparisons of the number of victims from terrorist attacks to those of traffic accidents, suicides and lightning. (Ironically, this approach echoes that of thousands of social media users with an anti-western axe to grind, who used Facebook’s ‘laugh’ emoticon to react to the BBC’s and Al Jazeera’s live feed of the attacks; the usual line of critique being that western countries do not seem to care as much for the millions of people dying in conflicts, or of hunger, around the world; as if the two are mutually exclusive or part of a zero-sum game).
In a short clip from a Newsnight interview that quickly went viral, Simon Jenkins criticised the BBC for inadvertently siding with the terrorist by giving the incident undue prominence. Jenkins argued that we should treat these terrorist attacks as “crimes” — like the countless other acts of violence that take place in the streets of London every day. He said that “in this case, probably some crazy guy, for all I know, who’s gone mad, he’s done something really stupid and he’s dead. It’s a crime”.
This approach is not only naïve, it is dangerous; although, its intentions are noble and its starting point is valid. It is true that publicity and unrest does assist the terrorists in spreading their message and recruiting new members, while — depending on the coverage — it can glorify terrorists, inspiring others to imitate their actions. The argument put forward by those who want the British media — and everyone else for that matter — to underplay terrorist incidents is that when a society reveals its fear, then the terrorists have effectively won. The “British way” of reacting to such an event is to stubbornly deny the terrorists the knowledge and gratification that they have achieved their goal. Even if armed police are spread across London, even if streets are cordoned off, even if Tube passengers look at each other with a mixture of apprehension and solidarity, the message to the terrorists ought to be: life goes on, we are not afraid.
The problem with that approach is that any attempt to limit the discussion or underplay the impact is doomed to fail. In an era of digital pluralism and infinite sources of information, it is neither financially viable, nor morally and practically desirable for the media to self-censor so as to not aide the terrorists. The battle against international terrorism will not be won by us withdrawing from the battlefield — especially when that battlefield is our own home. Shifting the emphasis from the actual phenomenon to the symbolic and emotional responses does a great disservice to the public that it is supposed to protect; it deprives the government and the security services of vital scrutiny and political legitimacy that are both vital in the longer term.
On the day after Wednesday’s attacks, London’s two biggest free newspapers — the Evening Standard and the Metro — each devoted more than 12 pages to the incident. Their coverage focused on “human interest” stories, such as the attempt of passers-by to help victims. Neither newspaper engaged with basic questions — like “why is this happening?”. Neither offered the historical or political framework within which the phenomenon of international terrorism operates, or the short-term or longer-term strategies that the UK is following or has to follow so as to counter violent extremism and radicalisation.
Thursday’s main 6pm BBC news bulletin did not feature reports on what happened or what we know; on how the police, the security services and the government are responding to this; there were no correspondents in Downing St, or at the hospitals where the victims of the attack have been taken, or in Birmingham where the police had arrested suspects who may be relevant to the investigation; the editors did not choose to cover the parliamentary debate or to discuss the political ramifications of the attack domestically and internationally; no academics or researchers were brought in to explain what is happening. Instead, the most important news bulletin of the most important news organisation in the world, one day after the worst terrorist attack since 7/7, was dedicated almost in its entirety to relaying (live for the first 20 minutes, and in repetition for the subsequent 20), the vigil held at Trafalgar Square. Three speakers representing three authorities (the government, the police and the Mayor of London) lit three candles in memory of the three victims of the attack. The authorities were in such a hurry to frame the public discussion away from its factual aspects, that they organised a remembrance ceremony before the actual number of people killed in the attack has been finalised. A fourth victim was taken off life support on Thursday night, after the remembrance ceremony.
The dumbing down of terrorist coverage and the shift from factual coverage to postmodern symbolism is not only due to cost-cutting and the reduction of resources allocated to global current affairs. It also appears to be a central component of the government’s counter-terrorism strategy, which — at least insofar as the role of the media is concerned — has shifted from preventing further attacks, to building “resilience” and familiarising people with the practicalities of “moving on” after a terror attack. What the combination of those two patterns does is to normalise terrorism as an inevitable part of daily life, “part and parcel of living in a big city”.
Yet, terrorism is neither “an act of God”, nor a natural phenomenon. Islamist terrorism did not come from nowhere. While some perpetrators of violent attacks may suffer from mental health problems, many do not. Framing an ongoing global phenomenon that is affecting entire regions, transforming our way of life and draining the resources of security services as isolated acts of “crazy” individuals, and shifting the public debate from the realm of the political to that of emotions does not protect society; it endangers it.
Avoiding public debate about the root causes of terrorism, which may lead to uncomfortable questions about foreign policy (according to many left-wing/liberal thinkers) and social cohesion and immigration (according to many right-wing/conservative ones) and zeroing in on expressions of new-age solidarity is not journalism. Terrorism is not an inevitable part of our daily reality and framing it as such is a lazy, and ultimately immoral, strategy. It is up to viewers, listeners and citizens to question it and demand a better public debate.
