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Several French news organizations, including Le Monde, BFM-TV, La Croix, Europe 1, and France 24, are changing their policies relating to the broadcast and publishing of terrorist names and photographs. Le Monde's director argued that publishing the information amounted to "posthumous glorification":
Several French news organisations have said they will no longer publish photographs of people responsible for terrorist killings, to avoid bestowing "posthumous glorification".
Le Monde published an editorial after the latest attack, the murder of an elderly priest in a church near Rouen by two men claiming allegiance to Islamic State. Under the headline "Resisting the strategy of hate", Le Monde argued on Wednesday that all elements of society had to be involved in the struggle against terrorism, and that media organisations had a special role to play.
"The sites and newspapers that produce this information cannot excuse themselves from self-examination on several fronts. Since Isis terrorism first appeared, Le Monde has changed its practices several times," the newspaper said.
It first chose not to republish images from Isis propaganda documents. Then, after the attack in Nice on 14 July, when a truck drove through crowds enjoying the Bastille Day public holiday, Le Monde said it had decided to "no longer publish photographs of the perpetrators of killings, to avoid the potential effect of posthumous glorification".
France Télévisions [sic] resisted following suit, with the executive director of news saying, "we must resist this race towards self-censorship and grand declarations of intention."
There have been similar calls in the U.S. to pressure media organizations to self-censor the names and photographs of mass killers, culminating in the formation of a campaign called No Notoriety, founded by the parents of one of the victims of the 2012 Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting.
Related: Wipe the Names of Mass Killers Off the Internet
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @02:54PM
> As long as there's freedom the names will be put out there for those who want to know.
Which is totally irrelevant.
This isn't about censoring facts. It is about denying people fame. News coverage is publicity. Its notoriety. Its promotion. These people deserve none of that. The press is waking up to the fact that in the process of reporting the news, they've been doing much more than just reporting. These people's names are of practically no value at all in terms of reporting. The public learns nothing about them from their names. Facts about their backgrounds are 1000x more newsworthy than their names. So the public loses practically nothing by their omission, but the killers themselves lose nearly everything. Their identities will continue to be footnotes in the history books, nothing more.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Friday July 29 2016, @03:03PM
This isn't about censoring facts. It is about denying people fame. News coverage is publicity. Its notoriety. Its promotion. These people deserve none of that.
My point is that you can't actually deny other people fame. You can avoid giving them coverage yourselves, but you can't stop others from doing it.
The press is waking up to the fact that in the process of reporting the news, they've been doing much more than just reporting. These people's names are of practically no value at all in terms of reporting. The public learns nothing about them from their names. Facts about their backgrounds are 1000x more newsworthy than their names. So the public loses practically nothing by their omission, but the killers themselves lose nearly everything. Their identities will continue to be footnotes in the history books, nothing more.
Okay, so NBC chooses not to report the terrorist's name, but ABC still does it. What has been accomplished? Is the killer's identity now a footnote in the history books? Did NBC achieve their goal? Is their goal to simply not be a part of giving the terrorist fame, or is their goal to completely prevent the terrorist becoming famous? If the second, how is NBC going to accomplish that - are they going to lobby for ABC not to be allowed to report it?
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @03:07PM
> My point is that you can't actually deny other people fame
Fame is not binary. Its incremental. The less fame people give you, the less famous you are.
You are stuck in that classic geek failure mode of believing that if something is not perfect, then it is useless.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Friday July 29 2016, @03:13PM
You are stuck in that classic geek failure mode of believing that if something is not perfect, then it is useless.
I didn't say anything was useless. I asked if the goal was to "simply not be a part of giving the terrorist fame, or is their goal to completely prevent the terrorist becoming famous?" and "If the second, how [are they] going to accomplish that - are they going to lobby for [others] not to be allowed to report it?" It sounds like your answer is "the goal simply to not be a part of giving the terrorist fame." If so, then that takes care of the concerns I raised. But when people discuss this issue they are usually pretty vague about the wording, leading to the possibility that at least some people would favor the use of force to stop others from reporting the names of killers.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @03:41PM
> or is their goal to completely prevent the terrorist becoming famous?
Binary. You keep doing it. Only you think binary is their goal. Probably because you want to complain about censorship since that's an easy binary complaint to make, much easier than understanding how human society actually works. Life is analog.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Friday July 29 2016, @04:38PM
Only you think binary is their goal.
No I don't - are you reading my posts?
Probably because you want to complain about censorship since that's an easy binary complaint to make, much easier than understanding how human society actually works.
I have no problem with self-censorship and am passionately opposed to government censorship. It has nothing to do with anything being an easy complaint. It has everything to do with trying to highlight a line that for some reason people don't always observe.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @06:01PM
classic geek failure mode
Nice generalization.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @10:02PM
'classic' : of a class (+ other bits of stuff)
Yes, a nicely chosen equivalent of 'generalisation', that is just what he meant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @04:08PM
This. Whenever you deny someone publicity/notoriety for their dastardly deed it seems like it has to be a step in the right direction. Even if it's only a few newspapers that sign on initially, this is a good thing.
I remember being very frustrated by the Bush administration calling for a "War on Terror" after 9/11. By declaring war on Al-Qaeda it immediately legitimized them as a state-level actor. Wars are between countries. If instead, we had sent all the same troops after them, but called it a police action to catch international criminals, my gut tells me that Al-Qaeda would have had a lot more trouble recruiting.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @04:33PM
Today it's someone who does a dastardly act. Tomorrow it will be regular criminal's. And from there it will go to anyone who disagrees with the 'common' consensus.
While I agree with you that the situation should have been treated as law enforcement rather than war, censorship though even in the name of 'good' is still censorship and it's only good because you fall on the correct side of it.
I oppose this action by the newspapers simply because I seem to be some of the few who has enough foresight to imagine one day that the argument will be 'people wouldn't have such shocking and disturbing views if we just don't allow them to speak'.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Friday July 29 2016, @05:00PM
It's not "censorship".
It's refusing to do the job of the terrorists.
ISIS is just a bunch of loonies on pickup trucks, who are incapable of taking a town 30km from their "capital" because it's not filled with Sunni.
But they are really really good at propaganda, and using the media and the internet, to recruit weak no-life boys who have a sense of oppression from the European country where they've lived their entire life in a dead-end crumbling neighborhood.
Join ISIS, you'll be someone! The Presidents of the world will talk about your deeds and repeat your name! The 24/7 channels will show your pictures in a loop that will only be broken when another ISIS member kills more than you! Even if we don't know you, and you just feel like killing your asshole boss, go gruesome and pledge for us, and you'll teach his family a lesson!
I've been saying that for a few years now. The West is stupid. We empower the middle-east rednecks (apologies to the working rednecks) to kick us.
We need to stop talking about their "conquests", stop reporting every fucking time one of them threatens anything, cut off their phones and Internet access, threaten google and the other Internet providers who provide platforms for propaganda (they're immune because they half-ass suppressing videos after they're told, which is too late. their algorithms could do a lot of pre-sorting).
Refusing to transmit the enemy's propaganda is not censorship.
Censorship would be avoiding talking about the people who die here or there, or why. The innocent should be named. Our fallen sons and daughters can be named. We don't need to name the other side's soldiers, or use our tax-funded infrastructure to let them recruit.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @06:08PM
It is censorship. Specifically, self-censorship. This term has existed for a while now; get over it.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday July 29 2016, @06:30PM
Under the broadest definition of self-censorship, it might be.
Otherwise, it's called journalism: sorting information based on the actual value to the target, rather than ratings.
Haven't seen much of that on most media outlets recently.