The Boston Globe’s ombudsman, Christine Chinlund, has joined her counterparts in St. Petersburg and Orlando in addressing the use of the word “terrorist” in news coverage. Chinlund explains:

“To label any group in the Middle East as terrorist is to take sides, or at least appear to, and that is not acceptable... One person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter; it's not for journalists to judge.”

 This sounds almost as radical as the policy set by Steven Jukes, Reuters' global head of news:

"We all know that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter and that Reuters upholds the principle that we do not use the word terrorist... To be frank, it adds little to call the attack on the World Trade Center a terrorist attack."

Well, at least Reuters is consistent. The Boston Globe seems to have a vaguely defined double standard. Al Qaeda, Chinlund writes, “has proven itself an allowable exception.”

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Meanwhile, the Orlando Sentinel’s Manning Pynn has been responding to email from HonestReporting subscribers – like this from Michael Korby, who asked Pynn the following question:

 Pynn and Korby engaged in a lengthy series of back-and-forth correspondence, where Korby wrote:

"The options are: a) In our reporting we should NOT use the word "terror," or b) In this case we SHOULD use the word "terror."

 Exasperated by Pynn’s avoidance of this central issue, Korby finally wrote:

Pynn also wrote a lengthy email to the editors of HonestReporting. Following is a text of that correspondence, with Pynn’s comments in normal print, and HonestReporting’s response in bold.

*           *           *

Dear HonestReporting.com:

Having endured a week in which I have received more than 300 electronic-mail messages based on your anonymous distortion both of what I wrote and what the St. Petersburg Times has "changed," I would like to respond and suggest that "honest reporting" would include admitting that you erred. I have no objection to anyone expressing an opinion different from my own, as Philip Gailey, the editor of editorials at the St. Petersburg Times did this past Sunday. He, personally, believes that terming suicide bombings "terrorism" would not undermine news reports' impartiality. As he noted in his column, however, his newspaper had not (as of last Sunday) embraced that position, as your article erroneously concluded. He wrote: "It [the Times] needs a policy on how to distinguish a militant from a terrorist, and newsroom editors are in the process of drafting one, as are editors at other newspapers around the country."

HonestReporting never “concluded” that the St. Petersburg Times formally “embraced” Gailey’s position. We simply indicated the remarkable fact that, as PRIMER has documented, the Times has recently begun using the term “terrorists” to describe Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and has even begun changing the language of incoming wire reports to reflect Gailey’s position. This effort, we believe, demonstrates a “new editorial commitment” on the part of the Times to call terror “terror.”

 Your account further deviated from honesty in reporting the following: “The term "terrorist," claims Pynn, only applies to al Qaeda, since the term "imputes to the person or organization being described the motive of trying to instill fear." Moreover, Americans were "so shocked" by 9/11 that they "almost universally applied the term 'terrorism' to what had happened." I did write that the term "terrorist" imputes to the person or organization being described the motive of trying to instill fear, and I did write that Americans almost universally applied the term "terrorism" to the events of Sept. 11, 2001. But I did NOT write that the term "terrorist" applies only to al-Qaeda, and alleging that I did is dishonest.           

 Pynn addresses three organizations: al-Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas. He then asks the question: Which of the three organizations are properly referred to in news articles as “terrorist.” His conclusion – only al-Qaeda.  

 “Pynn suggests, absurdly, that Hamas and Co. aren't trying to "instill fear" when they blow up civilian buses and restaurants. And the general degree of human shock, Pynn submits, is much lower when the innocent civilian victims happen to be Israeli -- or Americans in Israel, for that matter.”

I neither wrote, implied nor believe any of what appears in the foregoing paragraph. In fact, I stated clearly in my column: "I won't presume to resolve the Middle East crisis here. It is tragic and involves acts I regard as terrorism." To state otherwise, as you did, is pure dishonesty.

 As HonestReporting subscriber Michael Korby said in response: “Ah, yes, but you did [imply this]. You wrote: “The term ‘terrorist’ certainly expresses judgment: It imputes to the person or organization being described the motive of trying to instill fear.” The clear implication is that those that you do NOT label a terrorist are NOT trying to instill fear. If you did not mean that, perhaps you shouldn't have written that sentence, because the causal relationship implied here is indisputable.”

 “Pynn then makes the basic error of equating the Palestinians' intentional targeting of civilians with the collateral damage of Israeli strikes against terrorists. Says Pynn, sarcastically: "By that standard, of course, any nation at war could be labeled 'terrorist' when attacks take civilian lives."

 I did not equate Palestinians' "targeting of civilians with the collateral damage of Israeli strikes against terrorists." I quoted a local Palestinian leader who raised that comparison. And I most certainly was not being sarcastic when I wrote that by that standard, any country's military could be labeled terrorist. I was pointing out that I regarded the local Palestinian leader's comments as overreaching. To imply that was sarcasm, again, is pure dishonesty.

The quotation from the local Palestinian is obviously included to support Pynn’s position on the matter matter – that a Jerusalem bus bombing should not be reported in news reports as “terror.” And if Pynn intended to frame the Palestinian as “overreaching,” he should have made that point clearer, for it defies a simple reading.

That was a quote of the local Palestinian leader. Once again, pure dishonesty.

Once again, regarding a sympathetic quotation that supports the main thesis of an written text: Though the quotation is not to be considered the author’s own words, the quotation certainly becomes part of the author’s central argument.  The effect on the reader is largely the same.

“Pynn also fails to recognize that even in the context of war, deliberate violence against unarmed and non -threatening civilians is illegal under international law <http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/terrorism/terrorism3a.htm>, which treats terrorism as a separate, wholly immoral use of force. The Sentinel itself recognizes this when covering the ongoing Iraq war and the U.S. occupation of Iraq - on August 30, the Sentinel referred to the car bombing <http://www.honestreporting.com/a/r/572.asp> of an Iraqi mosque as the probable work of the al Qaeda "terrorist network." Why, according to Pynn's logic, did al Qaeda not suddenly become a "militant organization" when the US declared war on Bin Laden and occupied Iraq? “

 The reference cited above to an August 30 news article did NOT involve the Sentinel labeling al-Qaeda as a terrorist network but rather Lt. Maj. Dhiyaa al-Ukashi saying that to a radio network. Once again, pure dishonesty.    

Quotations are selectively chosen by news agencies to further a particular presentation of the events. Moreover, al-Ukashi is not directly quoted in the article; it is likely, therefore, that the term “terrorist network” was added by the journalist to al-Ukashi’s statement regarding “al-Qaeda.”

 “The double standard at the Sentinel persists - but it now bears the stamp of approval of the paper's Public Editor.”

I did NOT give my stamp of approval to the "double standard." I pointed out that the Sentinel has referred to the 9/11 attackers as "terrorists" and that it does not refer to suicide bombers as "terrorists" and noted the inconsistency. I think they should be treated the same -- that news articles should describe such attacks without using judgmental terms, so that readers can conclude for themselves if the attacks are "terrorism."

I have no quarrel with branding such attacks -- both those of 9/11 and suicide bombings -- as terrorism (which, as I stated in the column, I, personally, regard them to be) in editorials and opinion columns. I do have a quarrel with organizations such as HonestReporting.com bending my words to make a case that doesn't otherwise exist. It's anything but honest.

By writing “the horse is out of the barn on the labeling of al-Qaeda,” Pynn is saying that it’s simply too late to rectify the situation -- that though al-Qaeda perhaps should never have been called “terrorists” in news coverage, it just happened and “I don't think the Sentinel will retreat from that.”

Pynn therefore does not advocate changing the labeling of al-Qaeda from “terrorist organization,” nor Hamas et al from “militants.” This policy is, de facto, a double standard in news coverage.

Pynn’s vague admission that the Mideast crisis “involves acts I regard as terrorism” is a far cry from a direct statement that Pynn regards Hamas suicide bombings as terrorism. (Perhaps Pynn was implying that Israeli road blocks and targeted strikes are “terror”? He doesn’t specify.)

 The bottom line is: What do Pynn and the Sentinel believe? If they believe a suicide bombing of a bus is terrorism, so the removal of that term from a news report is no less “judgmental” an act that the inclusion.