But Now I Don't Know Why I Feel So Tongue-Tied

by Eric Martin

A little over a month ago, Andrew Sullivan had a fascinating piece on the evolution of the New York Times' willingness, or lack thereof, to use the term "torture" to describe, well, torture (for definite lack of a better word).  As Sullivan demonstrates, prior to the Bush administration, the Times repeatedly and reflexively referred to interrogation methods such as sleep deprivation, waterboarding, hypothermia, stress positions and physical beatings as torture.  No euphemism, no equivocation, no even-handed airing of the torturers' rationale/argument and no concern for the associated political controversy.  It was simply torture. 

In recent years, however, the Times has begun to use euphemisms to describe those exact same techniques.  What was torture was now "intense interrogation," "harsh interrogation and "detainee abuse" - though recently, and to much self-congratulation, the Times has mustered the courage to call what they once freely termed torture, a "brutal mode of..interrogation."  Baby steps for a previously ambulatory being.

Not to single the Times out: other major media outlets such as NPR have embarked on the same self-censorship (NPR opting for phrases like "alleged abuse" and "harsh treatment").  The Washington Post referred to torture-produced evidence as "testimony allegedly acquired through coercion of witnesses."  Allegedly coerced - so innocuous.

One of the problems that arises when our major media outlets (and political leaders) partake in this Orwellian exercise in lexical obfuscation is that there is an erosion of meaning across the board.  The new linguistic conventions adopted to provide political cover for American policymakers that implemented a regime of torture become a form of political cover for all manner of torturers - foreign and domestic.  

Consider, for example, the way the New York Times describes the despicable acts of torture inflicted on Iranian protesters by the Iranian regime in recent weeks: "prison abuse."  Not even the new-found "brutal" qualifier.  "Prison abuse" is the term used in the title of the article, and six times in the body - almost the only descriptor employed.  The only exception is when the Times goes as far as to say that one detainee's family "said he was being subjected to torture."

Apparently, these practices don't arise to the level of torture:

Some prisoners say they watched fellow detainees being beaten to death by guards in overcrowded, stinking holding pens. Others say they had their fingernails ripped off or were forced to lick filthy toilet bowls. [...]

Although the government has played down the scale of the prison abuses, some detainees’ relatives have come forward recently to confirm them, mostly to opposition-linked Web sites that have provided credible information in the past, including roozonline.com and gooya.com.

Some deaths have been further documented with photographs or videotapes. Hospital officials have described receiving bodies of those killed in protests, with the total far in excess of 20, the government’s initial figure. It is difficult to confirm such reports independently, given the restrictions on reporting in Iran. [...]

“We were all standing so close to each other that no one could move,” he wrote in a narrative posted online. “The plainclothes guards came into the room and broke all the light bulbs, and in the pitch dark started beating us, whoever they could.” By morning, at least four detainees were dead, he added.

In another account posted online, a former detainee describes being made to lie facedown on the floor of a police station bathroom, where an officer would step on his neck and force him to lick the toilet bowl as the officer cursed reformist politicians.

A woman described having her hair pulled as interrogators demanded that she confess to having sex with political figures. When she was finally released, she was forced — like many others — to sign a paper saying she had never been mistreated.

To paraphrase the Times' Public Editor, Clark Hoyt: In a polarized atmosphere in which many Iranians believe the nation betrayed its most fundamental ideals in the name of repressing political dissent and others believe extreme measures were necessary to save the very nature of the Islamic Revolution, The Times is displeasing some who think “prison abuse” is just a timid euphemism for torture and their opponents who think “prison abuse” is too loaded.

What's a journalist to do in the post Bush/Cheney world?

(links via Bruce Etling)

Comments

[SBM]

Is 'Eric Martin' a nom de plume for Thom Yorke?

[Sasha]

What's a journalist to do in the post Bush/Cheney world?

Pretend the last 8 years never happened?

[Eric Martin]

"Is 'Eric Martin' a nom de plume for Thom Yorke?"

It's been alleged.

[Ben Alpers]

Thank goodness the subject has changed. I find the collapse of real health care reform so depressing!

;-)

[Er?]

"the very nature of the Islamic Revolution" = lives (?)

[Eric Martin]

"the very nature of the Islamic Revolution" = lives (?)"

Um, what are you asking/suggesting? Some torturers have better rationales? That those that defend the Islamic Revolution can't make the argument that lives are at stake in that defense? That they can't argue that selling out to American stooges will subjugate the people to dictators like the Shah who killed thousands?

What?

[Ugh]

Shorter NYTimes: Republicans buy the paper too.

[cleek]

i wrote NPR a letter about this and they replied with:

Dear [Cleek],

Thank you for contacting NPR.

We regret if our programming has not met your expectations. We strive to offer the highest quality of news and information available. Listener feedback helps us to accomplish this goal.

We welcome both criticism and praise, and your thoughts will be taken into consideration.

Thank you for listening, and for your continued support of public broadcasting. For the latest news and information, visit NPR.org.

pathetic.

[Nate]

cleek:

Yeah, that's all I got from NPR the four or five times I wrote to them.

[Point]

"Shorter NYTimes: Republicans buy the paper too"

This actually gets to a pretty good point http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/07/the-audience-wants-justification-not-explanation-for-media-behavior.php
">Yglesias made about how we talk about the media.

[Point]

So I take cleek or nate never got to hear their letters read on the air?

[Slartibartfast]

It's nice to see Andrew Sullivan bending his attention to topics other than Trig Palin.

Although it's not entirely clear what a "Cheney technique" is meant to be.

[Cyrus]

In recent years, however, the Timeshas begun to use euphemisms to describe those exact same techniques. What was torture was now "intense interrogation," "harsh interrogation and "detainee abuse" - though recently, and to much self-congratulation, the Times has mustered the courage to call what they once freely termed torture, a "brutal mode of..interrogation."

Well, the NYT and WaPo have to sell newspapers and advertising space to conservatives, and most (not all, of course, and not exclusively) modern American conservatives condone torturing suspected criminals, but which is politically incorrect. Insulting such a big part of your target market is bad business.

In more general terms, the mid-20th century on really seems like a dark age for journalism. This may seem odd considering that there are/were so many trusted and trustworthy journalists of the period, like Walter Cronkite, but even the real Dark Ages produced some important philosophers or artists here and there. It's been good for the business of journalism - or at least, good for whichever papers monopolize their local media market - but TV is a good medium for sensationalism and a bad medium for in-depth reporting, and those low standards bleed over into print media as well, and the pressure to remain inoffensive to such vast markets, let alone to please them, is stifling.

Hopefully that dark age is ending or has already ended, what with the rise of online media, but it's too early to say so for sure. For all I know, maybe we've traded one problem for another, and our current cacophony of media will be as bad as or even worse than a homogenous few, and the early-to-mid-20th century was a halcyon period unrecapturable. And maybe it's always been this bad, I don't know, but I doubt it. The Jungle was published in 1906, two sweeping consumer protection regulations were passed that same year as a result of public outrage, and that wasn't even Upton Sinclair's goal. Today, Radley Balko is ignored even when a Harvard professor gets arrested for disorderly conduct in his home. Sinclair's muckraking got much better results than Balko's, and I don't think that's Balko's fault.

To put it more succinctly, journalism sucks because the big established actors try to please everyone. There are business models that work just fine without doing so, but those big established actors decided they like the revenue that comes from national markets.

[Gary Farber]

I thought we'd settled (via Rush Limbaugh) long ago that these were all just "fraternity pranks," and "people having a good time," and "blow[ing] some steam off."

"pathetic."

Would a form letter on their usage guidelines on the word "torture" be that much better?

[Gary Farber]

Point, yer link to Matt is broken, and should go here. (A break tag got left in somehow.)

[Point]

Thanks Gary.

[Gary Farber]

"In more general terms, the mid-20th century on really seems like a dark age for journalism."

Why the mid-20th century compared to the early 21st century, or late 20th century? I'd like to see the argument for this.

"...but TV is a good medium for sensationalism and a bad medium for in-depth reporting,"

That's a choice, not inherent. Back in the fifties, Edward R. Murrow for some time famously did some excellent work on See It Now. During the Sixties, all three networks did a bunch of groundbreaking documentaries on important issues, such as the environment, or poverty, and thought nothing of their responsibility to present these as one hour, or two hour, specials in prime time.

It was in the Seventies that we began to see the growth of local tv news being seen as a source of real profit, and consultants being hired to revamp them into smiling always upbeat, chatty co-anchors, full of "good news," and from there it was all downhill into complete sensationalism ("if it bleeds, it leads") and irresponsibility, and from there, and with the acquisition of the networks by larger conglomerates, the same phenomenon, along with the pressures to squeeze out greater profits and lesser costs, has spread to the tv network news.

But none of that is inherent to the medium. The PBS Newshour is still pretty good. So are "American Experience" documentaries, and many other documentaries on PBS, and sporadically some of the other cable networks (though some of those range from mildly to completely irresponsible, as well, and the cable "news" networks are all complete cesspools that no one should ever waste a moment of time watching; and their same ethic has spread to once-reputable venues like "20/20," or the NBC equivalent, which are now pure exploitive crap, as well).

But those are all choices. Choices to see tv purely as a medium for profit, rather than as the public responsibility they were once mandated to be by the FCC, and for quite some time took quite seriously.

Although it should be noted that, in today's environment, the broadcast networks are essentially dying beasts, dinosaurs, becoming less and less able to compete with the lower cost margins of cable networks, anyway.

[Gary Farber]

"The Jungle was published in 1906, two sweeping consumer protection regulations were passed that same year as a result of public outrage, and that wasn't even Upton Sinclair's goal."

Yes, but you can hardly give Sinclair sole credit for any of this; his work took place during a context of a huge Progressive reform movement, and admidst the work of dozens of other "muckrakers," all supported by many politicians and political movements, the most prominent of whom, of course, was Teddy Roosevelt. It was Teddy who coined the word "mudrakers." And this was also in the context of many journalist, such as Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, Nellie Bly, Jacob Riis, etc.

And that was all in the context of other politicians and movements such as Robert La Follette, Louis Brandeis, etc. Sinclair was just a small cog in this great social movement responding to the injustices of industrialization and urbanization.

[Gary Farber]

"It was Teddy who coined the word 'mudrakers'."

Er, "muckrakers." Someone else must have coined "mudrakers."

[judson]

With all this equivocation don't you think it refreshing that a politician, a president would call someting stupid, stupid?

[Eric Martin]

I didn't mind it really.

[Nate]

Gary: "Would a form letter on their usage guidelines on the word "torture" be that much better?"

Not much better, but it'd mean at least they're paying enough attention to know WHY people are complaining, rather than just sending the same form letter to everyone.

Not that they would have changed and contradicted the then-President on what was torture and not, but still.

[Cyrus]

"In more general terms, the mid-20th century on really seems like a dark age for journalism."

Typo; I meant to write "mid-to-late-20th century." And it might continue on well into the current one, but that depends on whether and when you want to start giving online media credit for turning it around.

[Gary Farber]

"In more general terms, the mid-20th century on really seems like a dark age for journalism."

Typo; I meant to write "mid-to-late-20th century."

Ah. Thanks for clarifying.

"And it might continue on well into the current one, but that depends on whether and when you want to start giving online media credit for turning it around."

I'd start with the end of 2001 as the beginning. I vas dere, Sharlie. And I recommend Scott Rosenberg, and here's Chapter 9, which I briefly linked to here in an otherwise fascinating post. ;-)

One can argue for a later year, of course.

[Andrew]

Credit where it's due: This American Life recently featured an wtory about Lynndie England (the dog leash woman in the Abu Graib photos) that referred without any remark or qualification to "the Bush administration's torture program".

So there are pockets of frankness on NPR, though not on the major news programs unfortunately.

[Andrew]

wtory = story. Sorry.

[lijakaca]

Do journalism students get Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language(I'm not sure how to link to it) as an assignment in first-year? Because they really, really, should.

[Gary Farber]

"Do journalism students get Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language(I'm not sure how to link to it)"

I am.

Everyone should read (or have read) it, and it bears rereading; not just journalism students, or people who write; everyone.

[tomtom]

Selling newspapers is a business.

Something around half of the public approves of torture, especially when it is not called its rightful name.

Several commenters already noted these facts and did the math.

I think it re-eaches the lesson of 11/2004. We don't need a new government or different fournalists so much as we need a new public.

In the meantime we relay on the few officials and journalists who possess courage to do the hard and lonely work of inspiring the coming generation to reach a bit higher than their pathetic parents.

Obama's political caution especially rankles, because for the most part the enemies of civilization have higher pulpits and louder megaphones. Or civil degradation forces an unfair and especial obligation on those few with courage and the position to persuade our young.