Terrorism-Emerging Trend and India

27 February 2009
Terrorism: The emerging Trend and India

Exerpts from a Lecture

The terror attack in Mumbai on 26thNovember was yet another grim reminder to the changing face and contours of terrorism and the advantage of the terrorist about the time and the target. It was for the first time that public places with thronging population were chosen to inflict ,maximum damage in term s of lives and destruction of properties. It also proved that terrorists were extremely well-trained and fought like professional mercenaries.

The incident not only exposed many chinks in the amour of law and order machinery, it also exposed many lacunae in the government's response to a problem of such magnitude. In addition, it raised many questions about the conduct of media on such occasions.
Terrorists, governments, and the media see the function, roles and responsibilities of the media when covering terrorist events from differing and often competing perspectives. Such perspectives drive behavior during terrorist incidents--often resulting in both tactical and strategic gains to the terrorist operation and the overall terrorist cause. The challenge to both the governmental and press communities is to understand the dynamics of terrorist enterprise and to develop policy options designed to serve the interests of government, the media, and the society.
Terrorists must have publicity in some form if they are to gain attention, inspire fear and respect, and secure favorable understanding of their cause, if not their act. Governments need public understanding, cooperation, restraint, and loyalty in efforts to limit terrorist harm to society and in efforts to punish or apprehend those responsible for terrorist acts. Journalists and the media in general pursue the freedom to cover events and issues without restraint, especially governmental restraint.

Three new trends appear to be emerging which impact on the relationship between the media, the terrorist, and government. These include: (1) anonymous terrorism; (2) more violent terrorist incidents; and (3) terrorist attacks on media personnel and institutions.
A number of options, none without costs and risks, exist for enhancing the effectiveness of government media-oriented responses to terrorism and for preventing the media from furthering terrorist goals as a byproduct of vigorous and free reporting. These include: (1) financing joint media/government training exercises; (2) establishing a government terrorism information response center; (3) promoting use of media pools; (4) promoting voluntary press coverage guidelines; and (5) monitoring terrorism against the media.
The media and the government have common interests in seeing that the media are not manipulated into promoting the cause of terrorism or its methods. But policymakers do not want to see terrorism, or anti-terrorism, eroding freedom of the press--one of the pillars of democratic societies. This appears to be a dilemma that cannot be completely reconciled--one with which societies will continually have to struggle. The challenge for policymakers is to explore mechanisms enhancing media/government cooperation to accommodate the citizen and media need for honest coverage while limiting the gains uninhibited coverage may provide terrorists or their cause. Communication between the government and the media here is an important element in any strategy to prevent terrorist causes and strategies from prevailing and to preserve democracy
COMPETING PERSPECTIVES ON THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA WHEN COVERING TERRORIST EVENTS
Terrorists, governments, and the media see the function, roles and responsibilities of the media, when covering terrorist events, from differing and often opposing perspectives. Such perceptions drive respective behaviors during terrorist incidents--often resulting in tactical and strategic gains, or losses, to the terrorist operation and the overall terrorist cause. The challenge to the governmental and press community is to understand the dynamics of terrorist enterprise and to develop policy options to serve government, media and societal interests.
WHAT TERRORISTS WANT FROM MEDIA
Terrorists need publicity, usually free publicity that a group could normally not afford or buy. Any publicity surrounding a terrorist act alerts the world that a problem exists that cannot be ignored and must be addressed. From a terrorist perspective, an unedited interview with a major figure is a treasured prize, such as the May 1997 CNN interview with Saudi dissident, terrorist recruiter and financier Osama Bin Ladin. For news networks, access to a terrorist is a hot story and is usually treated as such.
They seek a favorable understanding of their cause, if not their act. One may not agree with their act but this does not preclude being sympathetic to their plight and their cause. Terrorists believe the public "needs help" in understanding that their cause is just and terrorist violence is the only course of action available to them against the superior evil forces of state and establishment. Good relationships with the press are important here and they are often cultivated and nurtured over a period of years.
Terrorist organizations may also seek to court, or place, sympathetic personnel in press positions--particularly in wire services--and in some instances may even seek to control smaller news organizations through funding.
Legitimacy. Terrorist causes want the press to give legitimacy to what is often portrayed as ideological or personality feuds or divisions between armed groups and political wings. For the military tactician, war is the continuation of politics by other means; for the sophisticated terrorist, politics is the continuation of terror by other means. IRA and Hamas are examples of groups having "political" and "military" components. Musa Abu Marzuq, for example, who was in charge of the political wing of Hamas is believed to have approved specific bombings and assassinations. Likewise, the "dual hat" relationship of Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein--the purported political wing of the IRA--to other IRA activities is subject to speculation. Distinctions are often designed to help people join the ranks, or financially contribute to the terrorist organization.
They also want the press to notice and give legitimacy to the findings and viewpoints of specially created non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and study centers that may serve as covers for terrorist fund raising, recruitment, and travel by terrorists into the target country. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad-funded and controlled World and Islam Studies Enterprise is but one known example.
In hostage situations--terrorists need to have details on identity, number and value of hostages, as well as details about pending rescue attempts, and details on the public exposure of their operation. Particularly where state sponsors are involved, they want details about any plans for military retaliation.
Terrorist organizations seek media coverage that causes damage to their enemy. This is particularly noticeable when the perpetrators of the act and the rationale for their act remain unclear. They want the media to amplify panic, to spread fear, to facilitate economic loss (like scaring away investment and tourism), to make populations loose faith in their governments' ability to protect them, and to trigger government and popular overreaction to specific incidents and the overall threat of terrorism.
WHAT GOVERNMENT LEADERS WANT FROM THE MEDIA
Governments seek understanding, cooperation, restraint, and loyalty from the media in efforts to limit terrorist harm to society and in efforts to punish or apprehend those responsible for terrorist acts, specifically:
They want coverage to advance their agenda and not that of the terrorist. From their perspective, the media should support government courses of action when operations are under way and disseminate government provided information when requested. This includes understanding of policy objectives, or at least a balanced presentation, e.g., why governments may seek to mediate, yet not give in to terrorist demands.
An important goal is to separate the terrorist from the media--to deny the terrorist a platform unless to do so is likely to contribute to his imminent defeat.
Another goal is to have the media present terrorists as criminals and avoid glamorizing them; to foster the viewpoint that kidnapping a prominent person, blowing up a building, or hijacking an airplane is a criminal act regardless of the terrorists' cause.
In hostage situations, governments often prefer to exclude the media and others from the immediate area, but they want the news organizations to provide information to authorities when reporters have access to the hostage site.
They seek publicity to help diffuse the tension of a situation, not contribute to it. Keeping the public reasonably calm is an important policy objective.
It is generally advantageous if the media, especially television, avoids "weeping mother" emotional stories on relatives of victims, as such coverage builds public pressure on governments to make concessions.
During incidents, they wish to control terrorist access to outside data--to restrict information on hostages that may result in their selection for harm; government strongly desires the media not to reveal planned or current anti-terrorist actions or provide the terrorists with data that helps them.
After incidents, they want the media not to reveal government secrets or detail techniques on how successful operations were performed--and not to publicize successful or thwarted terrorist technological achievements and operational methods so that copycat terrorists do not emulate or adapt them.
They want the media to be careful about disinformation from terrorist allies, sympathizers, or others who gain from its broadcast and publication. Many groups have many motives for disseminating inaccurate or false data, including, for example, speculation as to how a plane may have been blown up, or who may be responsible.
They want the media to boost the image of government agencies. Agencies may carefully control leaks to the press giving scoops to newsmen who depict the agency favorably and avoid criticism of its actions.
They would like journalists to inform them when presented with well grounded reasons to believe a terrorist act may be in the making or that particular individuals may be involved in terrorist activity.
In extreme cases, where circumstances permit, vital national security interests may be at stake, and chances of success high, they may seek cooperation of the media in disseminating a ruse that would contribute to neutralizing the immediate threat posed by terrorists. In common criminal investigations involving heinous crimes, such media cooperation is not uncommon--when media members may hold back on publication of evidence found at a crime scene or assist law enforcement officials by publishing misleading information or a non-promising lead to assist authorities in apprehending a suspect by, for example, lulling him or her into a false sense of security.
WHAT THE MEDIA WANT WHEN COVERING TERRORIST INCIDENTS OR ISSUES
Journalists generally want the freedom to cover an issue without external restraint--whether it comes media owners, advertisers, editors, or from the government.
Media want to be the first with the story. The scoop is golden, "old news is no news." Pressure to transmit real time news instantly in today's competitive hi-tech communication environment is at an all-time high.
The media want to make the story as timely and dramatic as possible, often with interviews, if possible. During the June 1985 TWA Flight 847 hijack crisis, ABC aired extensive interviews with both hijackers and hostages. (A photo was even staged of a pistol aimed at the pilot's head.
Most media members want to be professional and accurate and not to give credence to disinformation, however newsworthy it may seem. This may not be easily done at times, especially when systematic efforts to mislead them are undertaken by interested parties.
They want to protect their ability to operate as securely and freely as possible in the society. In many instances, this concern goes beyond protecting their legal right to publish relatively unrestrained; it includes personal physical security. They want protection from threat, harassment, or violent assault during operations, and protection from subsequent murder by terrorists in retaliation providing unfavorable coverage
They want to protect society's right to know, and construe this liberally to include popular and dramatic coverage, e.g., airing emotional reactions of victims, family members, witnesses, and "people on the street," as well as information withheld by law enforcement, security, and other organs of government.
Media members often have no objection to playing a constructive role in solving specific terrorist situations if this can be done without excessive cost in terms of story loss or compromise of values.
OPTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION
A number of options might be considered to improve government/media interaction when responding to or covering terrorist incidents. These include: (1) financing joint media/government training exercises; (2) establishing a government terrorism information response center; (3) promoting use of media pools for hostage-centered terrorist events; (4) establishing and promoting voluntary press coverage guidelines; and (5) monitoring terrorism against the media.
FINANCING JOINT GOVERNMENT/MEDIA TRAINING EXERCISES
Effective public relations usually precedes a story--rather than reacts to it. Nations can beneficially employ broad public affairs strategies to combat terrorist-driven initiatives, and the media can play an important role within the framework of such a strategy. Training exercises are vital: exercises such as those conducted by George Washington University and the Technology Institute in Holon, Israel, which bring together government officials and media representatives to simulate government response and media coverage of mock terrorist incidents. Promoting and funding of similar programs on a broad scale internationally is an option for consideration. India can also think of such an exercise.
ESTABLISHING A GOVERNMENT TERRORIST INFORMATION RESPONSE CENTER
One option the Govt of India might consider would be establishment of a standing government terrorist information response center (TIRC) working directly under ministry of Internal security. Such a center, by agreement with the media, could have on call (through communication links) a rapid reaction terrorism reporting pool composed of senior network, wire-service, and print media representatives. Network coverage of incidents would then be coordinated by the network representative in the center. Such a center could be headed by a government spokesperson (the Terrorism Information Coordinator, TIC) who could seek to promptly seize the information and contexting initiative from the particular terrorist group.
Too often, when terror strikes take place in India, there is a vacuum of news other than the incident itself, and by the time the government agencies agree on and fine tune what can be said and what positions are to be taken, the government information initiative is lost.
PROMOTING USE OF MEDIA POOLS
Another option that has been mentioned specifically for coverage of hostage type events, would be use of a media pool where all agree on the news for release at the same time. A model would need to be established. However, media agreement would not be easily secured.
PROMOTING VOLUNTARY PRESS COVERAGE GUIDELINES
Another option would be establishment by the media of a loose code of voluntary behavior or guidelines that editors and reporters could access for guidance. The national broadcasting Authority(NBA) has been given the mandate to regulate news content in the country in such circumstances and the broadcasters too have agreed to ban Live phone ins with terrorists, avoid broadcasting security operations and drop repeated shots of the aftermath of violent crimes.. However, there is a need for senior network and print media executives to develop voluntary guidelines on terrorism reporting.
Areas for discussion might be drawn from the practices of some important media members and include guidelines on:
Limiting information on hostages which could harm them: e.g., number, nationality, official positions, how wealthy they may be, or important relatives they have;
Limiting information on military, or police, movements during rescue operations;
Limiting or agreeing not to air live unedited interviews with terrorists;
Checking sources of information carefully when the pressure is high to report information that may not be accurate--as well as limiting unfounded speculation;
Toning down information that may cause widespread panic or amplify events which aid the terrorist by stirring emotions sufficiently to exert irrational pressure on decision makers.
Television:- the bigger nuisance
Television News channel came under sharp attack in the Mumbai terror incident for various reasons. Media channels ran LIVE images of gunmen spraying bullets into the crowds of people. One Tv news channel aired an interview with the terrorists that virtually amounted to giving them a platform to espouse their cause. At least 7 news channels ran LIVE shots of commandos dropped on the roof of the Jewish centre at Nariman point .This led many people to comment that the electronic media failed to rise to the occasions. Instead of being somb and regulated, the electronic media appeared to be over-excited and it showed everything as if it was" reporting a war ALIVE"
Many television experts agree Television news amplifies and brings together different threats and insecurities (economic, human, environmental) in a number of intersecting ways. It does this through:
· Promoting immediacy, intimacy, and visuality as core criteria for determining news agendas. These news values make television news the most effective global delivery system for terror events. Hence, it is not an exaggeration to state that the medium has become 'weaponised'. Television is not merely an instrument of war but an actual constituent of terrorism today.
· Rolling 24 hour news alongside internet news sites serve to encourage an exponential growth in speculative public discourses by journalists, 'experts', academics and pressure groups on the nature of existing and potential security threats, their conflation, and potential responses by government and military forces. Yet this speculative, expansive chatter also diminishes the significance of responses, as each becomes part of a surfeit of information, images, and 'opinion'.
Secondly, television news contains and softens threats and insecurities through:
· Repetition. TV news' prioritisation of liveness is matched by its compulsion to repeat, recycle, and reframe. Indeed, the value attributed to the footage of events offering dramatic immediacy and intimacy is also one of the criteria for their re-selection and re-use. In fact the notion of 'shock value' is a matter of ever diminishing returns.
· Fitting new stories into pre-existing templates that viewers are familiar with. This might be considered to reduce uncertainty and provide reassurance as to likely and knowable outcomes. But does fitting new stories into established frames and narratives necessarily enhance public understanding of issues"
· Sanitising the violent 'excesses' of conflict and warfare. Television news is subject to an economy of 'taste and decency' and to presumptions about the sensitivities of audiences. Television news is thus condemned by these thresholds that curtail the extent to which it can fully expose the worlds it connects and represents.

In case of Mumbai attack, electronic media made a mockery of itself. Reporters spoke lying down on the ground for hours as if they were treading through the hail of bullets. Worst still was the behavior of the celebrity reporters who virtually ran amuck …and some of them talked nonstop- nonsense. A few of them were so off the mark, stale and staid that they appeared to be suffering not only from intellectual constipation but verbal diarrhea as well.
Suggestions
Have a fresh anti- terror doctrine
A central agency to tackle terror menace across the country.
NSG to be posted at all regional HQs for quick response .
A terrorism centre for quick info dissemination
A pro-active media-govt coordination machinery.