Reuters is at it again with their odd nomenclature for terrorists. This Reuters story about today’s arrest of Abdullah al Mujahir contains this howler,
The United States blames Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network for the Sept. 11 hijacking attacks on the United States that killed 3,000 people.
Would Reuters ever run a story in which they referred to Eric Robert Rudolph or Ted Kaczynski as American-born dissidents? Of course not.
Does this really matter, though? Does how Reuters frames Osama bin Laden really change anything? Maybe. Phil Gourevitch’s excellent book, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda, does a good job of showing how this sort of neutrality in the international media (subsequently embraced wholeheartedly by relief and human rights organizations) helped provide a smokescreen for the genocide perpetrated in Rwanda. The way the media frames an issue can make a big difference on how that issue is perceived and acted upon.
Early coverage of the Rwanda genocide, for example, tended to exaggerate the prevalence of human rights violations committed by Tut sis in order to portray the genocide there as intensive ethnic violence for which both sides were equally responsible. That initial spin colored a lot of reactions to the genocide and was embraced by human rights groups who allowed themselves to be used by the planners of the genocide.
If Reuters does not want to use the word terrorist, why don’t they refer to Osama bin Laden as a “fugitive” or even an “accused terrorist”? Dissident is just grotesque.