US prisoner at Abu Ghraib
This is an update to “Refusing to Take Sides, NPR Takes Sides With Torture Deniers” (FAIR Blog, 12/12/14).
As Romenesko (12/12/14) points out, NPR‘s ethics department has been issuing guidance on the use of the word “torture.” The first memo, issued August 8, cites a message from then-NPR vice president for news Ellen Weiss, written in November 2009:
Contrary to some commentaries, NPR did not ban the word “torture.” Rather, we gave our journalists guidance about how to avoid loaded language about interrogation techniques, realizing that no matter what words are chosen, we risk the appearance of taking one side or another. We asked our staff to avoid using imprecise descriptions that lump all techniques together, and to evaluate the use of the following descriptions, depending on context, including: “harsh” or “extreme” techniques; “enhanced interrogation techniques”; and specific descriptions, such as “controlled drowning.” We specifically advised them that they may use the word “torture” when it makes sense in the context of the piece.
Of course NPR did not ban the word “torture”—but it did, according to ombud Alicia Shepard (6/21/09) a few months earlier, decide “to not use the term ‘torture’ to describe techniques such as waterboarding but instead [use] ‘harsh interrogation tactics,'” because “the role of a news organization is not to choose sides in this or any debate.”
It’s not clear that Weiss was intending to contradict Shepard—whom she echoes with her point about “risk[ing] the appearance of taking one side or another.” Weiss’s offering of euphemisms like “enhanced interrogation techniques” to use in place of “torture” suggests that she thought situations where referring to “torture” in one’s own voice “makes sense in the context of the piece” may be quite limited.
The August 8 memo cites a couple of examples: One is Robert Siegel (All Things Considered, 4/3/14) referring to “a report about the torture of terrorism suspects after 9/11”; another is Tom Gjelten (Weekend Edition, 5/25/14) talking about “the debate over whether torture in some cases has produced valuable information.” In both cases the references are meta—not describing government actions directly as “torture,” but referring to the subject of a report and a topic of debate, respectively. Still, these indirect references open the way for more explicit labeling of torture as “torture.”
A more recent ethics memo headed “Guidance: Effective References to ‘Torture'” (12/10/14) includes “examples of how our guidance on use of the word ‘torture’ has been implemented” that “may be helpful.” These include:
- A Newscast report that refers to the “so-called ‘torture report.'”
- Renee Montagne on Morning Edition referring to “what’s come to be known as the ‘torture report’
- Montagne asking a source about specific interrogation techniques: “Do they constitute torture?”
- Audie Cornish paraphrasing on All Things Considered: “You had Sen. John McCain on the Senate floor today saying torture produces more misleading information than actionable intelligence.”
None of these examples involve NPR journalists describing torture as “torture” in their own voice; they’re all consistent with Shepard’s position that to do so would be “to choose sides in this…debate.”
The latest memo from ethics (12/11/14) again encourages euphemisms—”brutal interrogation techniques/brutal interrogations,” “interrogation techniques” or simply “interrogations”—though it withdraws “enhanced interrogation techniques,” which Weiss had OKed, “unless you’re explaining that is the term the CIA uses for the practices it believes were legal.” On torture, it says that “the word can be used,” but offers specific examples of how this should be done—such as “saying that ‘torture and other harsh [or brutal] methods’ were used,” or “that detainees were ‘in some cases tortured.'” In these formulations, it’s acceptable to say that there was torture—so long as you at the same time suggest that other forms of “brutal” interrogations were not torture.
This seems to mesh with the answer Renee Montagne (Morning Edition, 12/10/14) got from her source, former CIA lawyer John Rizzo, who said that “Justice Department legal opinions established the legal lines and legal limits,” and that “anything that went beyond those techniques, especially the gruesome ones that you described there, sure they would probably constitute torture.” So by referring to “torture and other harsh [or brutal] techniques,” you are taking the position of the lawyer who oversaw the CIA’s torture program. So much for not choosing sides.
The ethics memos twice refer to the Merriam-Webster definition of “torture” as “the act of causing severe physical pain as a form of punishment or as a way to force someone to do or say something.” If NPR on air would use the word “torture” to refer to acts that meet that definition—regardless of who committed the acts—that would be a huge step forward.
Torture is “enhanced interrogation techniques”
And rape is “unsolicited sexual interaction”
Maybe FAIR should produce guidelines on using the word “journalist.” E.g, “So-called journalist Rene Montaigne…”
I mean, hasn’t anyone read 1984 recently?
NPR, to the extent that it does not completely identify with the U.S. government’s assertions, is afraid of being the butt of a temper tantrum from some powerful political personage or right-wing media yahoo which may conceivably lead to its funding being threatened. It also has a self-image, like the NYT has, which it wants to preserve, of being unsmudged by controversy. The denial of reality to which this fantasy leads among otherwise intelligent people is vaguely amusing, but ultimately an extreme disservice.
Jim’s last observation was right-on. Webster already defined our lexicon, but NPR, aiding and abetting their corporate Neo-Con handlers, must sanitize, obfuscate and “clean up for an American audience”. When a journalist must seek employer guidance for something as basic as definition of words…said “journalist” needs a job, not a hobby…OR…When a journalist is coerced into substituting employer paranoid political expediency and funding concerns over Webster defining lexicon, said journalist is no longer one, and probably never was.
We’re all a product of our environment, our histories, our genes, etc.
In an ideal world, all journalists would be immune to pyschological and financial and other pressures. We are fortunate to have a small number of those who fit the categories of the most courageous, but we can’t expect everyone to meet that standard.
I’ve stood up to a multitude of pressures for most of my professional life, but it is not an easy career path. Just being honest usually produces a very difficult existence.
Look what happened to Gary Webb, for an example.
NPR freely uses the word “torture” when describing the practices of other countries. When it comes to the US, however, it’s “enhanced interrogation” or “harsh interrogation techniques,” or, if you can believe it, “these strategies.” These strategies! Orwell is turning in his grave.
Whenever you are averse to using a word like “torture”, that is probably exactly what you are talking about. For NPR at any time to chill its rhetoric to avoid taking sides in a debate about torture, they not only avoid their journalistic responsibilities, they do so mendaciously. In other words, they lie to protect torturers.
And now, thanks to NPR as well as other irresponsible and cowardly media, the torturers live their lives robed in finery: Cheney enjoys his extraordinary wealth, Bush paints his toes, Rice is permitted to run a law firm AND teach at Stanford, and John Yoo actually has a tenured position at Berkeley.
These actions performed by or at the behest of these people WILL come back to haunt our country. We will ALL be held responsible, whether we protested them or not. Even our kids will be held to account for what we did. We will never escape the stain on our Union. It has wiped away all the good this nation has ever done and replaced it with a single awful word: torturers. That’s us.
And all the while, our media blathered and examined their navels while the screams and abject sobs went unheard.