Journalists, Their Terminology and Terrorism in the Essay

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Journalists, Their Terminology and Terrorism

In the age of terrorism and in the age of the Internet, journalists are coming under more and more intensive scrutiny and are increasingly urged to act more sensitively to the power they have and the power which they can wield when it comes to reporting current events -- particularly those related to terrorism. As some scholars have illuminated, journalists are indeed arbitrators of rhetoric, and ones which have limited success: "Evidence of arbitration is seen in comparisons between how media personnel describe terrorist events and their perpetrators and how government officials make similar descriptions. Journalists serve as creators of rhetoric whenever they report terrorist events. The rhetorical tradition employed determines the nature of that rhetoric. The role of formats, the presentation conventions that are used to package information and determine the significance and the information that news packages carry, are also important" (Picard 1989). Thus, when it comes to things like the terminology which journalists choose, the words and phrases selected thus become enormously important. It's important to understand the main rhetorical pillars that journalists typically use: information, sensationalism, feature story, and the didactic approach (Picard 1989). It's important to understand how these approaches can impact how audiences understand these subjects, and the wide variety of roles that journalists play as they are involved in the development of rhetorical visions: there's an amplification, an arbitration and creation of rhetoric. Thus, the press has a tremendous amount of power in developing how the world at large views terrorism and related events.

This paper will examine the power that journalists have and the sway that they are able to engage in when it comes to reporting things like the pro-Muslim brotherhood and other terrorist groups. This paper will look at the difference between responsible and irresponsible reporting is because journalists really do have a tremendous amount of influence and power on how the rest of the world perceives the events around them. This paper will look specifically at the breaking up of the protests in Raba'a and Nahda Squares in Egypt, August 2013. Precisely, this paper will determine how the different coverage of these events by different news sources can actually reveal to us a great deal about the bias that such members of the press can place on events. The press outlets selected are as follows: Aljazeera, Alarabyia, Ahram and the BBC. Aljazeera was selected because it obviously supports the Muslim Brotherhood; Alarabyia was selected because it's strongly anti-Muslim Brotherhood, yet from a non-Egyptian perspective, and Ahram was chosen because it is also anti-Muslim Brotherhood, yet from a perspective based in Egyptian media. Finally, the BBC was selected because it offers a more generalized and more western perspective on this event as a foreign happening.

The BBC

A press outfit like the British Broadcasting Company portrayed the events of August 2013 as purely chaotic instances of bloodshed, violence, terror and tragedy. The day the camps were cleared, the British Broadcasting Company offered up a more sensationalized article on these events as they unfolded. For example, the headline of the article was, "Egypt Protests: Bloodshed as Pro-Morsi Camps Cleared"; clearly this demonstrates the slant that the BBC is taking on this particular article, as it paints a picture of bloodshed and chaos. "Egyptian security forces have stormed two protest camps occupied by supporters of deposed president Mohammed Morsi in Cairo, with reports of many killed. Witnesses said they saw at least 40 bodies, but the Muslim Brotherhood says hundreds died. Armored bulldozers moved deep into the main camp outside the eastern Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque. Officials say the other protest camp, at Nahda Square, has also been cleared. Graphic accounts of bloodshed emerged from the protest camps as reporters described wounded protesters being treated next to the dead in makeshift field hospitals" (Sykes, 2013). This account gives the appearance of attempting to stick to the facts, when in reality; it actually is a strategic portrayal of graphic and intimidating imagery. There is a strong, repetitive imagery of piles of bodies and of bulldozers storming past people and bodies. The words chosen give a strong sense of bloodshed and numerous victims of these crimes. Another journalist describes the pandemonium and alludes to the fear that it instilled in him: "An armored military bulldozer drove down towards the barricades on the edges of the encampment. The bulldozer pushed its way through rows of bricks and sandbags. Pro-Morsi protesters responded by throwing stones and burning tyres" (Reynolds 2013).

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This is yet a repeated image of bulldozers overcoming the united people who had gathered in these squares, driving forward the image of armored riot police with live cracked ammunition, and intensive bangs with deeper thuds of tear gas and other explosions (Reynolds, 2013). As this journalist explains, "For a while, it was hard to breathe without a gas mask. Some local residents held handkerchiefs to their faces - and watched the police deployment from their balconies" (Reynolds, 2013). The phrases used in this reporting create an undeniable image of terror: of innocent people who are being waged against an unkind and unfeeling police force and who are unable to defend themselves. The sense of chaos is obvious and imminent: ammunition is cracking, tear gas is thudding, explosions are going off, things are banging and again, the image of bulldozers tearing through the streets is clear and absolutely undeniable. The scene described is almost biblical in its portrayal of the carnage suffered and the manner in which innocent people were helpless against the forces of violent government that they were up against.

Moreover, the BBC is successful in painting a clear picture of a cold and unfeeling government which is in sheer denial of its own brutality and which cares very little about the carnage that it wreaks. In this sense, the BBC is painting a clear picture of a government which engages in clear and steady justification of all that it does. As the BBC explains, the interior ministry denied that there were any fatalities that were caused as a result of their forces or the live ammunition that they fired (Sykes 2013). As the interior ministry asserted in a statement, "Security forces used only tear gas canisters to disperse the protesters though it was heavily fired at by armed elements from inside the two protest camps, causing the death of an officer and a conscript and the injury of four policemen and two conscripts," (Sykes 2013). The BBC takes a very clear and very unmistakable stance on this statement, and dismissed it with cynicism, while accusing the government of congratulated the security forces at work on their work in clearing the camps. This particular press outlet's personal opinions on the work of the government is obvious in the following statements by their use of quotation marks. "In a televised statement, a government spokesman praised their 'self-restraint' and spoke of the 'smaller number' of injuries among protesters" (Sykes 2013). Thus, the BBC is presenting the facts of the situation and the events that unfolded, but they're doing so with a strong imprint of their personal opinion of what happened and who was to blame. Thus, the BBC reported the news while maintaining a strong moral viewpoint of what occurred and what it meant for the people involved and for the world at large.

Aljazeera

Aljazeera is a media outlet which obviously takes a completely different stance on these events, being a media outlet which is largely supportive of the Pro-Muslim Brotherhood. In fact, on the website which reported on these events, the headline is conspicuously more sedate. On Aljazeera, the headline reads, "Dozens Dead as Egypt Cracks Down on Sit-Ins" (2013). The journalism markedly lacks the sensationalism and vivid imagery of words chosen by the BBC. Instead the entire approach is clearly more sedate, with facts and figures being stuck too more closely. Consider the following: "A security operation to clear protesters camped out on the streets of Cairo since President Mohamed Morsi was deposed by the military last month has left at least 40 people died. The Egyptian Interior Ministry says 200 people have been arrested, including 50 in the Rabaa al-Adawiya sit-in in Nasr City and 150 at the Nahda Square sit-in in Giza" (Aljazeera 2013). These facts demonstrate a marked absence of the sense of bloodshed and chaos that the BBC portrayed. Instead, the journalist speaks of elements like tear gas and birdshots being used on supported, and that security forces broke up the sit-ins there. One thing that this press outlet did use to convey the sense of chaos was to give a complete line break to the following statement: "Bulldozers were said to have been used to uproot the camps" (Aljazeera 2013).

Moreover, the Interior Ministry is not treated with the same level of scorn that the BBC uses. Instead, there's the assertion that security forces engaged in complete control over Nahda Square and that.....

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