Press freedom has been under attack in America since the 11 September events.
This report was written by two representatives of the Paris-based anti-censorship group,
Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) who recently went to New York to examine the issues of
press freedom. Their report, reproduced here, was first published in the
November issue of The Newsletter, the RSF’s official mouthpiece.

After the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, many journalists and foreign observers have cast doubt on the objectivity and independence of the American media.
In addition, several people within the United States have spoken out to warn the public about a decline in the freedom of expression and opinion — freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment of the American Constitution — in exchange for tightening security.
“We are facing an enemy, which is exploiting what it is about our society that makes it strong and effective: freedom, openness and freedom of movement. We have to be sure that we remain an open society in which individual freedoms are respected,” said Strobe Talbott, former State Department official with the Clinton Administration.
After the attack on the World Trade Centre, the FAA grounded all flights, and the United Sates was cut off from the rest of the world. The only reporters who could cover the story were American journalists and foreign correspondents based in New York.
All the people we interviewed in New York mentioned this: the American television networks were the first to cover the story and they were an excellent source of information in the first days.
The organisation, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), generally very critical of the major American media, found that coverage in the first days was generally acceptable. “We saw a new type of spontaneous and sincere journalism,” said one of its directors, Steve Randell.
But, just a week later, the tone and content of reporting on the American television networks changed.
“I think the turning point was George W. Bush’s speech to Congress on 20 September,” said Eric Leser, correspondent for the French daily, Le Monde. “Since then, the media have taken on a strongly patriotic tone and news has lost out to propaganda.”
Justifying themselves
Journalists and media executives interviewed by RSF either strongly denied producing propaganda, or, on the other hand, acknowledged and justified their decision.
“The footage of the attack against the World Trade Centre has no equivalent in the history of conflict,” said Paul Khlebnikov, a journalist with the influential economic magazine, Forbes.
“In the war of pictures, the terrorists have made a decisive point,” Khlebnikov continued. “That is why the war that the United States is going to wage should not be just military and economic, but also psychological, therefore media driven. Killing bin Laden will not be enough; he will have to be cut down symbolically.”
Khlebnikov said he was not worried by the bellicose and propagandist tone adopted by some of the US media: “If the media have sometimes lacked objectivity, it was not under official pressure. Objectivity in journalism does not mean an absence of values.”
Barely one week after the attacks, some European media executives, especially those in France, questioned the impartiality of the American TV networks, suspected of not showing “all the images”, especially those of the victims of the attacks.

Read the full story in the January 2002 edition of New African Magazine

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