AVELINO, FERNANDEZ, SAN JUAN, TIZON

GROUP 2

BAJ 3 1D
HANDOUTS

Terrorism, Government, Media by Luis V. Teodoro

Introduction: Orphans of the Cold War

The use of violence for political and other aims once thought by the
unimaginative to be the distinctive characteristic of the Cold War era has not
passed into history with the end of superpower rivalry.
During the Cold War certain groups claimed adherence to either bloc when
pursuing their trends through violent means.
There are governments that have historically used terrorist methods disguised as
legitimate military action to further their global policies.
State terrorism, though not a new concept, had previously not received sufficient
publicity to be of common knowledge.
Of even more uncommon knowledge among other reasons because the
paucity of media coverage is the use of international terrorism to further the
foreign policy aims of dominant states.

Current Trends

Though difficult to define, terrorisms means are immediately recognizable,

among them being hostage-taking, kidnappings, assassinations, bombings, and
hijacking against individuals or groups of individuals who usually have no direct
connection with the perpetuation of the grievances the terrorists claim to harbor.
Terrorism is used by powerful countries to continue their image of strength
among other countries to achieve foreign policy aims.
In the new world order characterized by the dominance of one superpower,
armed groups with often legitimate grievances accountable to no one except
themselves have proliferated, their autonomy making them more difficult to
detect, and penalize.
Anonymous terrorism is obvious terrorism for which no one claims responsibility.
Another developing trend id the increase in the number of attacks against
journalists and other media practitioner

State Terrorism

A small terrorist group has proliferated; of equal concern to all people interested
in the realization of a more peaceful world is continuing use of terrorist methods
by dominant states against other states. For this, media news flow over much of
the planet being blind, often willfully, to the terrorism of their own states.
Of equal interest to Filipino journalists should be terrorist attacks on members of
their profession by unnamed groups, including agents of the state which in fact
happened during both the Marcos and Aquino governments, when military and
police units initiated terrorist acts, including assassinations against media
practitioners as well as the leaders of mass organizations to further
antidemocratic ends. In the Marcos period, however, these attacks were certainly
tolerated, if not encouraged, as a matter of state policy.
The word terrorist is used to describe their enemies. No one is beyond the
terrorists reach.

Terrorism: A definition

Terrorism has been defines as a form of politically motivated violence committed

by a small group of people or even by individuals to influence the behavior
particular audience.
In the words of the Russian anarchist Bakunin, terrorism is propaganda by
deed, intended to terrorize that wider audience into immobility, retreat,
surrender, or a change of attitude and policy, the terror it inspires proceeding
from the randomness and irrationality of attack.
Terrorism is in short form of communication and has a message that it seeks to
convey.
In relation to the media, the world is the terrorists stage, thanks to media.

Guarantees from terrorists

It was media's commercial interests as much as their capacity to operate freely

and safely that was primarily at stake. The private character of media ownership
in the Philippines became even more pronounced in the proliferation of TV and
radio stations as well as newspapers that followed the fall of the Marcos
dictatorship.
There is a scramble for circulation and ratings, and therefore competition for
scoops and exclusives as well as the most dramatic stories.
The very nature of the media enterprise helped too. Terrorist acts are almost
always developing stories. A coup attempt characterized by indescriminate acts
of violence, requires follow-up stories which usually take the form of interviews
with the personalities involved, as well as search for background material.
While media were using the coup plotters as much as they were being used, the
kind of coverage media extended the latter was also a defensive means.
The relative weakness of the Aquino Government (the late Pres. Cory Aquino)
was in no position to provide media the guarantee. Their policy was let media
fend for themselves, without benefit of either government coercion or protection,
a policy it claimed was for the sake of press freedom.
Media organizations knew that under the circumstances only such groups as
RAM could guarantee their safety and capacity to operate freely. Death threats
were received in which the message was that no one was safe, and no one at
least of all the government, could guarantee their safety.
The former Marcos military officers were far more threatening than the NPA.
Thus was the NPA described as "marginalized" in media accounts that celebrated
RAM stalwarts as reformists, complete with photographs that showed them about
to jump out of airplanes with pythons draped over their shoulders.
Contrary to what is now conventional wisdom, only a few media practitioners in
the latter years of the Marcos period were to deviate from the uniform loyalty of
mainstream media practitioners to the Marcos agenda. Regime opponents were
labeled as terrorists and criminals, while the regime itself was portrayed as
rational, generous and representative of majority interests as well as enjoying the
wide support of the citizenry.
Media acquiescence to the Marcos agenda was partly due to convenience not
ignorance, which made it all the more reprehensible. But it was also based on
fear, the demonstration effect of the arrests of media people as well as the
repression of others being still fresh in their minds even many years after.

Media acquiescence

Media can be as guilty of serious ethical and professional offenses when they
serve the interests of terrorists governments as when they allow themselves to
be used by non-governmental terrorist groups.
Offenses include; a.) the fundamental one of failing to provide accurate, unbiased
information to act on matters that affect their lives, b.) being part of antihuman
enterprises, and c.) the use of weapons and mass destruction against unarmed
and defenseless men, women and children.
Pacific News Service editor Walter Truett Anderson called the relationship
between media and terrorism "a deadly love affair" referring to the tendency of
US media to extensively cover the terrorism of non-governmental groups and
there is ample evidenve to prove that the coverage of such terrorists acts.
Anderson added that medja should cut back on the sensationalistic reportorial
orgies that accompany acts of terrorism that bring so little information to the
public yet cooperate so enthusiastically with the terrorists' agendas. US media
is more enthusiastic to support for US state terrorism.
According to Chomsky, US media actions as "collusion (with the US government)
in this act of large-scale terrorism.

Media and Government

Media and Government dont belong together, for they have different intentions.

Media:

Committed to search and disseminate facts.

Truth-telling is a commitment to which governments, including those that claim
adherence to democratic ideals do not necessarily subscribe

Governments:

They are not neutral entities, but represent the interests of groups dominant in
society.
Often functions in the service of limited political, economic, and other interests.

Government and Terrorism

Governments decisions and interests are mostly affected by social and political
movements.
If shown that they compromise elite interests, it results to terrorist attacks
combating the said movements.
In defense to those interests, governments condemn any act of terrorism
Governments usually describe their opponents as terrorists

Terrorists and rural-based guerilla (Political Terrorism 1989)

Terrorism:

Make a precise distinction between combatants and non-combatants.

Usually avoid attacking the armed opponents, preferring instead to commit acts
of violence against unarmed civilians.
Urban phenomenon
Violence is not terrorism because it not way to convey message.

Rural-based guerilla

Wage war against weakly deployed government forces, and either by design or
accident inflict some civilian casualties along the way.
Rural phenomenon.

The nature of terrorism is not inherent in the violent act itself. One and the same
act can be terrorist or not, depending on the intention and the circumstance.

Acts of war:

Acts of violence that serve a clear military purpose in themselves, or are

committed against the armed forces of the perpetrators opponents.

Terrorist acts:

Acts committed primarily to send a message

Deliberately seek unarmed non-combatants as victims in order to reinforce their

message of terror.
Usually committed by small, loosely organized groups accountable to no other
political authority except themselves, and without any clear social base even
among those sectors of society they often claim to be fighting for.

Media reporting terrorism:

Not easily assimilated.

Crucial to both the formation of public opinion and public decision-making.
Consequence of misleading reporting in a country of conflict makes the
achievement of peace much more problematic than it already is to begin with.

What governments want the media to do?

Medias active portrayal of terrorists as criminals
Medias active cooperation in preventing terrorist access to wider audiences
To portray governments as rational and representative of societys best interests
Media assistance in the apprehension of terrorists.
It has problems in places where press freedom is guaranteed.
To prevent media from furthering terrorist goals as a byproduct of vigorous and
free reporting, Raphael F. Perl of U.S. Congressional Research Service proposed:

1 Financing joint media/government training exercises;

2 Establishing a government terrorism information response center;
3 Promoting the use of media pools;
4 Promoting voluntary press guidelines; and
5 Monitoring terrorism against media.
This is not successful both in US and Philippines.

Governments should guarantee media safety:

This is to preserve press freedom.

This invites less media skepticism and a little more respect.

A government who cannot guarantee safety of media will invite media

practitioners to seek those guarantees from their own news sources.

Regime terrorism

Terrorism from government against Filipinos.

There is more media skepticism of government in here.
Claims of human rights violations as a consequence of this terrorism are either
surely exaggerated, or the invention of marginalized insurgent groups.
Reporting incidents under this has been either minimal, shallow, or blatantly
biased in favor of government.

To accurately and faithfully report these incidents:

Enhancement of media practitioners outrage, and sense of history and justice as

indivisible components of the ethical and professional imperatives of the media
professions.
Requires a reassessment of where medias allegiance resides: whether in
governments or in the people they claim to represent.

What Filipino media practitioners lack:

Information, which is ironic for professionals whose practice, depends upon it.

Government and media should stay clear of each other their relationship in the
reporting of terrorist incidents as well as of other forms of conflict should remain
firmly adversarial and mutually skeptical.
Media has the responsibility to educate themselves in a world of increasing
complexity in which things are often not what they seem, but in which information
has never been as crucial to the inhabitants of this planet, including that part of it
known as the Philippines.