Reuters denied on Thursday suggestions by media advocacy group HonestReporting that it and other international news organisations had prior knowledge of the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians and soldiers.
It is a very complicated situation, and journalists should in general be encouraged to cover important events. But there is a point where they cease to be objective observers. Having prior knowledge of military operation that targets civilians should cross that line. Crossing the border to accompany terrorists while they were perpetrating their acts should be so obviously past that line that it deserves the extra attention it’s getting now.
There is absolutely a moral dimension to a person having prior knowledge of an attack not making an attempt to prevent it by alerting authorities, but there is still some sticky aspects to this. If a reporter is embedded with a US marine unit, do they have an obligation to warn the Pashtun villagers if it’s probable that people will be killed? If those two incidents aren’t seen as equivalent, then we risk falling into the morality hole where objective journalism still should be playing good guys and bad guys.
But we don’t even need to go that far. We’re talking about whether a payment to a terrorist organization to secure an interview should itself be considered as supporting terrorism in the sense intended by US and international law. I’m saying there’s a big difference between a NYT reporter paying expenses to get an interview with senior IRA officials and a person in Boston sending $1000 to the IRA to fund their operations. And my concern is that freedom of speech will be affected if we conflate the two.
If that embedded reporter was aware the unit he is embedded in intends to target civilians then absolutely. If he doesn’t, goes along and takes pictures and then celebrates it with them then he’s complicit in that war crime.
As it so happens, this is almost exactly what the NYT contracted freelancer did. The question here is if NYT should have done any further due diligence and refused to purchase the photos. I don’t think there’s a moral quandary in this specific case.
I agree there is a moral difference between the two scenarios you proposed, but based on current OFAC guidelines, they are more likely than not the same. But that’s only for US persons. Most countries impose greater constraints on speech and the press and international outfits like AP and Reuters may need to worry about additional jurisdictions asking questions about their usage of freelancers with questionable ethics.
Let’s expand on that a bit. If we were to have had the footage of the My Lai massacre, or a reporter had foreknowledge of dropping a nuclear weapon on Hiroshima because of an intelligence leak, would that be participation in a war crime if they did not publish and make public the upcoming attack? If we look at the civilian deaths inflicted by Western countries, do reporters have a moral obligation to conduct what are essentially intelligence operations to disclose to the enemy that an attack is going to occur, or is it a passive obligation, or does it not apply because the army in question is on the reporter’s side?
You do know that there were US policies in place that any male between the ages of about 16-18 and 50-60 (very much just visually determined by the responsible units) who was killed as the result of an encounter was classified as an enemy combatant? Similar practices were performed in Vietnam and in other wars, and that does not count the deliberate or indiscriminate targeting of civilians done by overly enthusiastic methods of engagement. If we know that a Pashtun village has an Al Qaeda presence but also houses civilians, is it a war crime not to tell them that the Marines are coming and will be opening with a large scale airstrike (with a 100% chance civilians will be killed in both that and the ground action), or is that espionage or treason?
My point is that, as someone who was previously involved, the lines are much fuzzier than we sometimes think. Personally, I do think we need more control over public speech - hate speech in particular - and I believe that people tend to over interpret aspects of the first amendment as much as they do the second, but I have been trying to keep this as neutral as possible with regard to specific laws so that we can look at the moral rather than the legal issues. In other words, I am not philosophically a free speech absolutist, but I do think that the ability to report what is literally a both sides news story shouldn’t be compromised without very careful attention to the ramifications.
I think I’m even less of a free speech absolutist than you, but you raise some very good points.
The situation is incredibly complicated, which is why I’m picking everything apart to reduce the ambiguity of what they did as much as possible. It’s why I’m trying to figure out their intent at the time as well. These photographers didn’t document what happened in order to provide clear evidence of the crimes. They took pictures they thought would look good on a front page. Then they sold those images to news outlets. This means they didn’t consider whether or not they should notify anyone, or do the moral calculus to try to figure out if they could prevent it or even small acts like hiding a single child. If they did that, or even just published all their images for free the day after it would imply they understood that what happened was not acceptable.
Bottom line is that line is extremely fuzzy and hidden in the fog of war, but I think they crossed it.
It is a very complicated situation, and journalists should in general be encouraged to cover important events. But there is a point where they cease to be objective observers. Having prior knowledge of military operation that targets civilians should cross that line. Crossing the border to accompany terrorists while they were perpetrating their acts should be so obviously past that line that it deserves the extra attention it’s getting now.
There is absolutely a moral dimension to a person having prior knowledge of an attack not making an attempt to prevent it by alerting authorities, but there is still some sticky aspects to this. If a reporter is embedded with a US marine unit, do they have an obligation to warn the Pashtun villagers if it’s probable that people will be killed? If those two incidents aren’t seen as equivalent, then we risk falling into the morality hole where objective journalism still should be playing good guys and bad guys.
But we don’t even need to go that far. We’re talking about whether a payment to a terrorist organization to secure an interview should itself be considered as supporting terrorism in the sense intended by US and international law. I’m saying there’s a big difference between a NYT reporter paying expenses to get an interview with senior IRA officials and a person in Boston sending $1000 to the IRA to fund their operations. And my concern is that freedom of speech will be affected if we conflate the two.
If that embedded reporter was aware the unit he is embedded in intends to target civilians then absolutely. If he doesn’t, goes along and takes pictures and then celebrates it with them then he’s complicit in that war crime.
As it so happens, this is almost exactly what the NYT contracted freelancer did. The question here is if NYT should have done any further due diligence and refused to purchase the photos. I don’t think there’s a moral quandary in this specific case.
I agree there is a moral difference between the two scenarios you proposed, but based on current OFAC guidelines, they are more likely than not the same. But that’s only for US persons. Most countries impose greater constraints on speech and the press and international outfits like AP and Reuters may need to worry about additional jurisdictions asking questions about their usage of freelancers with questionable ethics.
Let’s expand on that a bit. If we were to have had the footage of the My Lai massacre, or a reporter had foreknowledge of dropping a nuclear weapon on Hiroshima because of an intelligence leak, would that be participation in a war crime if they did not publish and make public the upcoming attack? If we look at the civilian deaths inflicted by Western countries, do reporters have a moral obligation to conduct what are essentially intelligence operations to disclose to the enemy that an attack is going to occur, or is it a passive obligation, or does it not apply because the army in question is on the reporter’s side?
You do know that there were US policies in place that any male between the ages of about 16-18 and 50-60 (very much just visually determined by the responsible units) who was killed as the result of an encounter was classified as an enemy combatant? Similar practices were performed in Vietnam and in other wars, and that does not count the deliberate or indiscriminate targeting of civilians done by overly enthusiastic methods of engagement. If we know that a Pashtun village has an Al Qaeda presence but also houses civilians, is it a war crime not to tell them that the Marines are coming and will be opening with a large scale airstrike (with a 100% chance civilians will be killed in both that and the ground action), or is that espionage or treason?
My point is that, as someone who was previously involved, the lines are much fuzzier than we sometimes think. Personally, I do think we need more control over public speech - hate speech in particular - and I believe that people tend to over interpret aspects of the first amendment as much as they do the second, but I have been trying to keep this as neutral as possible with regard to specific laws so that we can look at the moral rather than the legal issues. In other words, I am not philosophically a free speech absolutist, but I do think that the ability to report what is literally a both sides news story shouldn’t be compromised without very careful attention to the ramifications.
I think I’m even less of a free speech absolutist than you, but you raise some very good points.
The situation is incredibly complicated, which is why I’m picking everything apart to reduce the ambiguity of what they did as much as possible. It’s why I’m trying to figure out their intent at the time as well. These photographers didn’t document what happened in order to provide clear evidence of the crimes. They took pictures they thought would look good on a front page. Then they sold those images to news outlets. This means they didn’t consider whether or not they should notify anyone, or do the moral calculus to try to figure out if they could prevent it or even small acts like hiding a single child. If they did that, or even just published all their images for free the day after it would imply they understood that what happened was not acceptable.
Bottom line is that line is extremely fuzzy and hidden in the fog of war, but I think they crossed it.