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posted by martyb on Friday July 29 2016, @01:53PM   Printer-friendly
from the say-no-to-notoriety dept.

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


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  • (Score: 2) by jdavidb on Friday July 29 2016, @03:13PM

    by jdavidb (5690) on Friday July 29 2016, @03:13PM (#381561) Homepage Journal

    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.

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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @03:41PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @03:41PM (#381565)

    > 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

      by jdavidb (5690) on Friday July 29 2016, @04:38PM (#381597) Homepage Journal

      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.

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