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If there is a written code of ethics for journalists I
have not received my copy. It’s not a problem; I have my own
rulebook, from which I’d like to share a lesson.
First some background. World magazine
reports that Time magazine, a division of AOL Time Warner, is
preparing a major story on Christian missionaries working in
predominantly Muslim countries. World has obtained a Time
memo laying out the premise of the story, and if not
predetermining the conclusions, at least drawing a pretty clear map.
While Time plans to look at several missionary styles,
they will “eventually narrow our focus to a more radical crew of
proselytizers: those who proclaim the Gospel of Christ, even if that
means risking deportation, imprisonment or death.” The memo
includes a list of Christian missionaries murdered in Muslim
countries in recent years, which likely explains why many missionary
organizations have cautioned their people against participating.
I have met missionaries who have worked in Muslim
nations, and Time is right about the danger. Unlike the so-called
martyrs we’ve heard too much about in recent years, these folks
neither seek death, find glory in it, nor wish to take anyone out
with them. And though Time told reporters they may withhold the
names of subjects it insists on photos for publication, a virtual
death warrant in some regions.
Contrast this with disclosures by another AOL Time
Warner division, CNN News. In an April 11, 2003 column in
The New York Times, Eason Jordan, CNN’s chief news executive,
admitted his network withheld knowledge of atrocities committed by
Saddam Hussein’s government over a period of at least 13 years. The
piece practically drips contrition; one can almost picture Jordan in
sackcloth and ash, flogging himself in penance.
But not quite. Jordan feels
“awful” about it, yet asks what else he could have done. He tells
of an Iraqi CNN employee who was tortured for weeks by secret police
hoping the man would rat Jordan out as a CIA station chief. Jordan
believes the employee and his family would have been imperiled had
CNN reported the story, and I don’t much doubt it.
Jordan cites employees of
unnamed news agencies who were tortured or simply disappeared after
actually reporting instead of parroting the pap fed them by Saddam’s
info goons. Iraqi Information Minister Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf,
whose surreal denials of the regime’s decay later earned him a cult
following in the United States, threatened “the severest possible
consequences” last December if CNN tried to report from Kurdish
controlled areas of the country. When the network broke form and
ignored orders from Baghdad, disaster was averted when Kurdish
troops captured Iraqi agents sent to murder CNN and other
reporters. According to Jordan, CNN declined to interview the
captured operatives on camera for fear of reprisals against its
employees.
In the most stunning admission,
Jordan claims Saddam’s oldest son told him he planned to assassinate
two of his exiled brothers-in-law and Jordan’s King Hussein, a story
the CNN executive didn’t air for fear his translator would be
killed. He did feel a “moral obligation” to warn King Hussein, a
courtesy not extended to the brothers-in-law. The two were lured
back to Iraq and slain shortly after.
In short, Saddam and the boys
were no happier with CNN’s mission than the local mullah might be
with evangelizing Christians. And while AOL Time Warner ditched
fair and complete reporting to keep the heat off its own employees,
it won’t allow the safety of others to stand in the way of a story.
Which brings me to today’s lesson from my rulebook,
specifically Matthew 7:12: “So in everything, do to others what you
would have them do to you.” The average 3-year-old knows this as
the golden rule. I suspect it works just as well for adult
journalists. |
