MULTIMEDIA MEETS RADIO

Should broadcasters give terrorists the sarin gas of publicity?

It is not often that Richard Quest is lost for words, but it happened for a few brief seconds at the News Xchange conference, in Istanbul. A man and a woman rushed onto the podium and started to unfurl a ridiculously large banner, before they were ushered away by security men.

It later transpired that the young protestors were members of the Association for Inmates' Families' Solidarity (TAYAD), a group that campaigns for better conditions in Turkish prisons. Not that I'm an expert on this sort of thing, but they would have done better to keep their message shorter, to give us time to read it before the gorillas stepped in.

Anyhow, we were later told they had been taken to a police station and detained only briefly for questioning.

The episode did not seem to affect Quest unduly and the presenter was soon shouting and flapping his way through a session on reporting terrorism, as only he knows how. The debate centred around the issue of whether the media is playing into the hands of militant groups by broadcasting their statements.

The question gained renewed prominence last month, when some politicians joined the tabloid press in accusing the BBC of offering "support and succour to the enemy" by interviewing a leader of the Afghan Taleban.

At News Xchange, there was a lot of talk about "the oxygen of publicity". But DMA Media's Stephen Claypole argued it was more like "the sarin gas of publicity" because video appearances by militant groups gave rise to public outrage and revulsion.

Most delegates agreed that interviewing those behind terrorist attacks could even serve a useful purpose. Peter Bergen's 1997 interview with Osama Bin Laden is said to have helped the US to understand its enemy.

The former CNN Chief News Executive, Eason Jordan, claimed he would pass up the opportunity to interview an al-Qaeda leader because he would feel compelled "to bring the killers of Daniel Pearl to trial". Jordan is now the CEO of something called Praedict/IraqSafetyNet, a "war zone-focused media company providing customized, up-to-the-minute news, intelligence, and safety tips to those in harm's way."

But even if broadcasters choose to avoid interviewing militants, they still have the problem of what to call them. The session's exuberant host neatly summarised the dilemma as "the hoary old chestnut of whether one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."

The BBC World Service's Phil Harding suggested the word "terrorist" was best avoided, as it signalled taking sides and abandoning neutrality. He said that using it on-air automatically excluded the opinions of many listeners and viewers, whilst playing into the hands of those who wanted the corporation to take sides.

One broadcaster that is frequently accused of taking sides is Al-Jazeera. London bureau chief Yosri Fouda, was angry that his 2002 interview with the masterminds of the September 11 attacks had provoked outrage in the West.

"When Peter Bergen interviewed Osama Bin Laden, in 1997, he was a hero. When I interviewed the 9/11 masterminds, I was seen, as an Arab journalist, as a suspect."

Fouda criticized governments for their attitude toward the channel.

"I cannot accept the argument that Al-Jazeera gives publicity to these groups," he said. "The real war is against misinformation from governments, misinformation that leads to self censorship."

News Xchange: a gem of a conference

Legend has it that one day, in Istanbul, a poor man was scavenging a rubbish dump for scraps of food, when he came across a large, pear-shaped crystal. Sensing that his luck was turning, the beggar promptly sold the brightly coloured stone for three wooden spoons.

It was perhaps the worst deal in history. The 84-carat Spoonmaker's Diamond now has pride of place in the city's Topkapi Palace, while no-one is quite sure what became of either the beggar or the wooden spoons.

I remembered the story as our taxi took us past the Topkapi Palace on the way to the Conrad Hotel, which is hosting the fifth annual News Xchange conference. Although locals may not recognise many of the "famous" broadcasters attending the conference, the tight security around the hotel should be enough to convince them that it is the real McCoy.

Inside the Conrad, I feel as though I have strayed onto the set of a celebrity reality show.

The conference room has been turned into a TV studio, complete with cameras, satellite connections and giant screens. Big name journalists present conference sessions for the benefit of their peers.

News directors, senior editors and star anchors from the UK and the US rub shoulders with their opposite numbers from around the world. The organizers say this year's event is the most successful yet, with 500 delegates from 55 countries, representing 115 media organisations.

There were whirling dervishes at the reception, but sadly no Turkish belly dancers to open News Xchange. Instead, delegates were treated to the exotically gyrating vowels of the BBC's Lyse Doucet, as she introduced Jan Egeland, a man who styles himself the "world's conscience".

The UN under-secretary for humanitarian affairs accused the media of choosing stories "as if a lottery" and systematically denying their audiences access to vital and compelling news.

He complained that while worthy, the media's coverage of Darfur was in stark contrast to its lack of interest in the tragedies unfolding in Uganda, the Congo and Colombia. He urged broadcasters to act more rationally - to "become more predictable" - and to exploit raw video produced by the UN.

ITN's Mark Austin opened his session on embedded journalists by showing delegates his British military passport. "You sign this and sign away much of your freedom as a journalist," he joked, "but you benefit in many ways too."

He believed that the nature of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan meant that never before had embedding been so important. At the same time, he suggested, the relationship between the military and the media had become difficult and fraught.

He quipped that this was to some degree inevitable since they had irreconcilable aims: the military wanted secrecy and the press wanted publicity.

The CBS chief foreign correspondent, Lara Logan, pooh-poohed the suggestion that as an embedded reporter, with US troops, she was not free to "do my own thing". Speaking by satellite from Baghdad, Lara Logan said that military patrols had often allowed her to go in to streets and houses unaccompanied.

She claimed that she had learnt a great deal about how the military operated and suggested that other journalists could only benefit from finding out how the military worked.

The BBC's Jeremy Bowen stressed that embedded journalists needed to remember who they were and to stay focused on the job they were doing. He said that they should keep their distance and remain separate from the soldiers.

"Journalists have to be outsiders - once we feel like insiders we have crossed the line," said the BBC Middle East editor.

The danger of going native was illustrated by the story of embedded filmmaker Victor Franka, who had spent five weeks "eating, sleeping, pissing and shitting" with Dutch troops, in Afghanistan, when Taleban fighters ambushed his convoy. Franka grabbed a gun and and started firing back, justifying his action with the explanation that his camera battery had run out.

According to General Danny Rothschild, of the Israeli Defence Force, the Dutchman is not the only one taking sides. General Rothschild claimed that a survey of 500 Israelis had highlighted the problem of what he called "unbalanced news reporting".

He told delegates that two days earlier he had met the BBC chairman, Sir Michael Grade, and an audience of 200. Over lunch, the general had attacked the BBC's Middle East coverage as one sided.

General Rothschild alleged that although Sir Michael had been quick to defended the integrity of his reporters, the BBC boss had conceded that "some were ignorant".

General Sir Mike Jackson stressed the importance of freedom of the press, pointing out that soldiers were risking their lives to help extend such freedoms elsewhere.

The session was brought to a sobering close by the BBC head of global news, Richard Sambrook, who asked delegates to rise to their feet as a mark of respect for the 131 journalists and media staff killed over the past 12 months.

Reporting Iraq

What are the risks, restrictions and possible rewards of what has become arguably the most difficult assignment?

The great Italian journalist, Tiziano Terzani, once told me that you cannot speak about a war unless you are prepared to face the danger and feel the fear of being on the front line. Put more crudely, you need balls.

Nowhere, in more than half a century, has the resilience and courage of reporters come under greater strain than in Iraq.

More than 90 journalists and media assistants have lost their lives since fighting started, in March 2003. The figure is from a study by Reporters without Borders, which describes the violence in Iraq as "the bloodiest for the media since World War II".

The violence poses a moral dilemma for news organizations, who must weigh up the benefits of sending reporters against the risks. Editors have a moral responsibility for the safety of their staff.

The price is high in financial terms too, since news organizations must invest heavily in security to provide adequate protection. The BBC is wealthier than most - it has spent five million dollars in Iraq, over the past two years - and even employs its own full-time security advisers.

Jonathan Baker, the BBC's Deputy Head of Newsgathering, told delegates, "If you can't protect your people properly, then you shouldn't be sending them."

The stringent security measures inevitably means there are restrictions on movement. BBC reporters, for example, spend much of their time holed up at their headquarters in Baghdad, in a heavily guarded street, which is barricaded at both ends.

But Jonathan denied that BBC correspondents were little more than dish monkeys, filing regular rooftop reports. Their presence, he claimed, made a difference.

World Editor Patrick Howse said it was about being able "to feel an atmosphere." He gave a vivid description of the "poisonous" aftermath of the destruction of one of Iraq's holiest shrines, in Samarra.

Patrick said that when the news broke, he saw "the blood drain from the faces of our translators". Angry Shia mobs chanted for the death of Sunnis, Americans "and anyone else they could think of."

Following the attack, the BBC was able to use its presence on the ground to prove that the official casualty figures were understated and came nowhere near reflecting the full extent of the carnage. For once, the BBC team broke their own rules and left their base to visit the morgue at Samarra's Yarmouk Hospital.

In the space of just 25 minutes, they witnessed three cars arriving with fresh corpses. The morgue was overflowing with bodies and many more were loaded onto an articulated truck parked just outside the hospital.

The pictures captured by the BBC team and the conversations they had with hospital staff showed beyond doubt that the official death toll of 340 was "preposterous".

Urban Hamid, a Swedish-Iraqi freelancer who provided the Iraqi footage for Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911, shares the BBC's conviction that he can only report Iraq by being there. Like Tiziano Terzani, he takes calculated risks. 

Urban therefore saw red when Swedish Radio decided, for safety reasons, to pull their people out of Iraq and for ethical reasons not to use stringers.

Urban told Swedish Radio Editor-in-Chief Staffan Sonning, "If I had rotten tomatoes or eggs, I would throw them at you." He was joking, but you could tell there was real anger behind the smiles.

Urban decided to stay put in Iraq, despite the fact that Swedish Radio's decision left him without any insurance coverage for several weeks.

He rejected Staffan's arguments about safety and an editor's moral responsibility. Urban, whose father was from Basra, told the conference that he exploited his network of relatives not only to gain access to stories, but also for tip offs about which areas to avoid.

Urban argued that his Iraqi roots and experience - he is in his late 40s - gave him an enormous advantage over many other foreign journalists. He likened them to the naive and accident prone tenderfoot in western films.

According to Mariusz Borkowski, the Deputy Chairman of Polish Radio, there was no question of his station pulling correspondents out of Iraq: they would stay for as long as Polish troops remained.

Mariusz said that covering Iraq was an essential public service, which also highlighted what he termed a Polish "paradox". Seventy per cent of the population opposed the war, but there was massive public interest in news from the region.

Reporting the world

Do the media give enough space to international events? What are the special responsibilities, if any, of public service broadcasters?

The former CBS news anchor and arguably America's most famous journalist, Dan Rather, has urged US networks to devote more time to foreign news. Rather told a session at this year's RTNDA/NAB:

International coverage will continue to shrink unless those of us who believe in it and believe it's important can make the case to the leadership and the ownership that this is a public serivce. It may not help the demographics and the ratings, and it may get you cursed out of the country club, but it's the kind of coverage you need if you're going to have integrity.

Public service broadcasting is about integrity, but at a time of budget cuts it is always easier to close a foreign bureau than risk losing a service closer to home. Audiences need to know why they should be interested in developments in sub-Saharan Africa.

Carmen Buergo, Radio Nacional d'España's international editor, said the key to selling international news to audiences was keeping it short and relevant.

Pascal Delannoy, who is the director of multimedia at Radio France, launched a withering attack on the French media. He said there was an identity crisis in France. The media were seeing things from a wholly French perspective and failing to shed light France's place in either Europe or the world.

He described a vicious circle, where audience apathy had resulted in reduced coverage of international events. The lack of correspondents and foreign bureaux meant there was nobody on the ground to provide context and background, so that there was nobody to tell audiences why they should be interested in a particular story.

Pascal said that compounding the dwindling numbers of correspondents was an ignorance about the outside world. The referendum on the EU constituion spawned the myth of the "Polish plumber" - a symbol of cheap foreign labour - that became a catchphrase during the campaign.

He said it was the duty of the media to find a religious conscience and explain the case of the cartoons. There was a lot to be done.

The French media had to explain Europe and educate people about why the Polish plumber was not a threat. On a more positive note, Pascal said the no-vote had triggered an editorial debate in France about how to present opinions, as well as underlining the need to present different points of view.

Sidestepping a question about how he would cover the "myth of the Polish plumber", Polish TV reporter Piotr Gorecki admitted that international news made audiences reach for their remote econtrols. Piotr said that while it was easy to identify and cover the big international stories, there was no clear policy on which other foreign stories to report.

Krzysztof Mroziewicz, a well-known Polish newspaper journalist, agreed that the media did not give sufficient space to international stories. But he said that the problem was not exclusive to Poland.

Hosam El Sokkari of the BBC highlighted the problem of young people are turning away from news. He said that the real challenge facing news organizations was how to win back a lost demographic by insisting on the importance of international news.

A cartoonist's view

We're off!

The Radio News Specialized Meeting is taking place in a rather formal, but comfortable conference room in the headquarters of Polish Radio. Our hosts have been very kind and have done a splendid job of organizing things.

The events of the next two days will be blogged here and by Kevin Anderson.

The opening debate is about the global furore triggered by the publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons satirizing the Prophet Muhammad.

"Something's going on, but you don't know what it is, do you Mrs. Jones?" said Lisbeth Knudsen, the Editor-in-Chief of Danish Radio and TV, quoting a Bob Dylan song.

As a kid, I was more into Motown - sorry Lisbeth, but I never really liked Dylan - and the song that came to my mind was Aretha Franklin's "Respect". The song became a civil rights anthem in the US.

Lisbeth said that the affair known in Denmark as the "Muhammad crisis" had underlined not only the importance of free speech, but also that freedom had non-negotiable "ethical limits". But this did not mean that there was no room for constructive debate, she argued.

The insider's view came from the Head of the BBC's Arabic Service, Hosam El Sokkari. No, he was not speaking as the man, or editor, from the Arab street, but as someone who started his career as a cartoonist for a daily newspaper in Finland.

Hosam made the very important point that the Danish cartoons first appeared in an Egyptian magazine in October last year - months before the riots. Was he suggesting that religious leaders and Arab governments may have exploited the affair?

Cartoons deal in stereotypes, whether the Prophet with a bomb under his turban or Hosam's Finnish skinheads - the subject of his first published cartoon. But Hosam stressed there was a wide-ranging debate in the "Arab world" and that dishonest reporting in the West, rather than freedom of the Arab press, was the real issue.

Many Arabs accused Westerners of double standards - after all, they argued, cartoons denying the Holocaust were unacceptable in the West and would not be published by the MSM. Quite simply, it was a question of respect.

Staffan Sonning, editor-in-chief of Swedish Radio, made the case for press freedom. He said that accepting that Jyllandsposten had the right to publish the cartoons did not mean that you condoned them.

Fr. Koprowski of Vatican Radio said the outrage over the cartoons reflected what he described as a crisis within Islam, as Muslims struggled to reconcile the past with the modern world.

Hosam accused Fr. Koprowski of over simplifying and making generalisations: fundamentalists did not reflect the mainstream, he stressed. And he denied that democracy and technology were irreconcilable with Islam.

Arthur Landwehr of Germany's ARD highlighted the cultural differences between Moslems and Christians and suggested that Muslim immigrants were changing tradional Western liberal values.

Arthur cited a recent example, from Germany, of a satirical version of the Lord's prayer, which replaced the religious content with football terminology. He said that the public service broadcaster had eventually dropped the "prayer" following a number of complaints, but that the affair had never really roused passions in the Christian community.

I wanted to ask Arthur if he felt that was maybe because the satire was confined to one community. It is the same reason why Jews tell the best Jewish jokes - when somebody else tells them, they often come across as racist.

Learning the lessons of the tsunami

Natural disasters will dominate the headlines and then gradually slip down the news agenda until they fall into oblivion. The media seldoms shows any interest in the long term consequences or the efforts made by survivors to recover and rebuild their livelihoods.

Delegates at MMR have heard how Radio Netherlands and Radio France have bucked the trend with two very different projects.

Radio in a box

Radio often plays a crucial role in the aftermath of a catastrophe like the tsunami of December 2004. It is not only a vitally important means of communication, but also a major source of information for listeners.

It was with this in mind that Radio Netherlands shipped three mobile radio stations to Banda Aceh, in March 2005. The objective was to enable local stations obliterated by the catastrophe to resume their broadcasts.

One of those involved in the project was Henry Sandee of Radio Netherland's Indonesian Service. He identified the need to reconcile short- and long-term goals as one of the chief challenges.

Short-term objectives for the local broadcasters include bringing families together, facilitating search operations and the prevention of epidemic diseases. In the longer-term, issues like sustainability, ownership and training become more important, while the need for the stations to generate revenue should never be overlooked.

Henry stressed that lives could be saved in the future if broadcasters learn the lessons of the tsunami. Above all, he said, radio must gain the skills to react more quickly.

Radio Netherlands is lending the "Radios in a Box" to the Indonesian stations until they are able to start using their own facilities again. Radio Netherlands will then deploy the mobile stations in other parts of the world and for other purposes, such as training.

A year in Hikkaduwa

Radio France sent a team of journalists to the Sri Lankan beach resort of Hikkaduwa, in the south west of the island, to record the rebuilding process. Dispatches were posted to a website, including pictures, maps and stories about the everyday struggles of ordinary folk, which atracted more than a thousand visitors a week.

"Hikkaduwa was chosen because the sea killed there more than a thousand people in a train and these images became a symbol of the catastrophe," explained Eric Chaverou of Radio France.

"We did this because our listeners always complain that we don't follow the action - we report the day of the tsunami, but do not go back afterwards. The internet has a very powerful thing that it will keep the story alive."

Hikkaduwa with its miles of golden sands and palm trees gently swaying in the wind is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful places on Earth. The tourist industry it has spawned is also a vital source of income for thousands of people.