taken without permission from NY Times

Why Are We Hiding bin Laden?

November 11, 2001

By ROBERT H. GILES

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.
Why can't we watch Osama bin Laden on American television? White House officials called on network executives last month, after a videotaped statement by Mr. bin Laden was widely broadcast on Oct. 7. The administration persuaded the networks that self-censorship was necessary to the war effort. The tapes of Mr. bin Laden were merely propaganda, it was suggested. Besides, he might be using the tapes to send hidden messages to terrorists, although no evidence was offered to support this notion. Network officials agreed to treat future broadcasts with care.

There had been no further Western sightings of the elusive leader of Al Qaeda until last Saturday, when Al Jazeera, an Arab satellite channel, broadcast a 20-minute videotape of Mr. bin Laden.

At that moment, we discovered what the "treat with care" arrangement meant. Brief segments were broadcast on the Fox News Channel and CNN, with news anchors reading quotations or paraphrased versions of Mr. bin Laden's statement that executives judged to be newsworthy. Americans could not get access to the full content of Mr. bin Laden's statement; even now the transcript is most easily located online rather than in more traditional news sources.

Al Jazeera is the primary international news organization providing serious coverage from inside Afghanistan. In an act worthy of the best traditions of American journalism, Al Jazeera invited a response to Mr. bin Laden from an American official, Christopher Ross, a former ambassador to Syria and Algeria.

He spoke for 15 minutes in fluent Arabic, criticizing Mr. bin Laden and denying his accusations. Thus, the people of the Arab world received a more complete picture of the charge and the response than did almost anyone in our country, the citadel of a free press and free speech.

American citizens missed important information about the person with whom our government is at war. For example, Mr. bin Laden greatly expanded the scope of his earlier comments on the connections between his own efforts and problems or conflicts in other places, past and present. In 1996, he had focused rather narrowly on the stationing of American troops in Saudi Arabia as a result of the Persian Gulf war.

By his Oct. 7 video statement, the one that prompted the White House to contact television executives, he had broadened his message to include the Palestinian cause and the effect of United Nations sanctions on Iraq. Much commentary at the time concerned whether Mr. bin Laden's late adoption of the Palestinian cause was merely opportunistic. The statement prompted the Palestinian Authority planning minister, Nabil Shaath, to say of Mr. bin Laden, "He just remembered Palestine two days ago."

In his statement last weekend, Mr. bin Laden extended his list of what he sees as Muslim-Christian conflicts to include Chechnya (with some pointed comments about Vladimir Putin and the "Russian bear"), southern Sudan, Somalia, Kashmir, Bosnia, East Timor and the Philippines.

Similarly, earlier statements by Mr. bin Laden had been narrow in their focus on the United States and, after the attacks of Sept. 11, on the Bush administration. Last weekend's statement showed a dramatic shift in attention away from the United States onto the Christian West more generally and onto the United Nations.

If this is propaganda, it is newsworthy propaganda. Bringing it to the American public might give some comfort to the enemy — but even that is far from clear. The expanded list of conflicts can be taken as evidence of growing desperation. The attacks on the United Nations and its secretary general, Kofi Annan, could indicate how great Al Qaeda's fear is of a broadly international, rather than American, effort.

The Bush administration has itself sought to portray this conflict as global, not merely American, and to show Mr. bin Laden as an aggressor against the world. Mr. bin Laden's recent statement gives much support to the administration's position, which makes it especially odd that the administration would want it kept from the American public.

Openness should not be a casualty of war. Over generations of actual and ideological combat, the press has enabled American citizens to be familiar with the images and messages of our enemies. Why is Osama bin Laden so different that television news can be pressured into blacking him out?

Propaganda is a tool of war. All governments use it. Efforts by the United States to limit news coverage are a form of propaganda that results in a distorted picture of reality being presented to American audiences. Through 40 years of the cold war, deception by a series of American administrations denied the public vital knowledge.

Another recent expression of the American news-management strategy is the decision to deny the Associated Press a place accompanying Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on a trip to consult with leaders of the coalition supporting America.

The decision reflects an information policy that either is tone-deaf — ignoring the fact that The A.P. is the only source of international news stories for hundreds of newspapers and radio stations — or a cunning effort to limit information about the Rumsfeld trip. Despite appeals from The A.P. and from the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the government refused to reconsider its decision.

Since Sept. 11, the resourceful and enterprising work of journalists has kept the public informed while maintaining the uneasy wartime balance between secrecy and the tradition of openness. But the nature of sources available to the press has led reporters to tell the story largely from the perspective of American self-interest. Against that backdrop, enabling the country to watch and listen to Osama bin Laden's statements is a small thing.

The Associated Press dispatch from Cairo describing last Saturday's videotaped broadcast on Al Jazeera said Mr. bin Laden "spoke calmly." "However, he sometimes appeared to be breathing heavily," the A.P. report continued. "He interrupted his speech to take two sips from a cup."

Was he acting? Were the attacks having an effect? Was he succeeding in the propaganda war?

American viewers should have the freedom to decide for themselves.

Robert H. Giles is curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University and former editor and publisher of The Detroit News.