Hacker News Reader

Comment by alphapapa | Hacker News Reader

> Reuters is pretty good for that sort of thing (for instance they don't use the term terrorism because they see it as a value judgement).

I would hope that even journalistic objectivity has some limit, to the point that one could call the slaughter of innocent people wrong. That's a value judgment that should be made. If not, then it would seem that they could not complain if their offices were attacked by evil people, because that would be making a "value judgment" on their actions. It seems like some kind of hypocritical cop-out.

Besides that, Reuters is no longer a bastion of objectivity. Their coverage is definitely left-leaning. And since they are a wire agency and their stories are reprinted around the world, it makes their bias even worse, because it seeps into other publications.

View on HN

The perspective is simply that it isn't the job of the media to say what's right or wrong, just to report what happened. They're not saying "these aren't terrorist attacks" only that the word "terrorist" is editorializing, which isn't their job.

My perspective is that it's unclear to me what you gain by describing something as a "terrorist attack" as opposed to just an "attack." I'll make up my own mind whether it's a terrorist attack or not.

I find Reuters fairly unbiased, although at the end of the day individual editors and reporters all have individual biases. If you have a recommendation for a less biased news source than Reuters please share.

I think you have a good point. On the other hand, it seems like a reasonable definition of "terrorist attack" would be something like, "an attack which causes or intends to cause terror," and by that definition, it seems obvious that it fits many attacks in the news. For example, a mugging resulting in murder is not a terrorist attack, but driving a truck through a crowd of people during an event while shouting a religious phrase is.

So by the same token, what is gained by describing it as "an attack" instead of "a terrorist attack"? I'm not sure it matters so much either way.

What I think may be more interesting is what the choice of description may imply about underlying bias.

I feel Reuters is biased toward the left, but that's just my interpretation. I wish I could recommend a less biased source, but it seems that they're either one way or the other. Maybe we (as a people) should just recognize that and read accordingly. The real danger is that we don't recognize bias and think that certain sources are impartial when they are not, because that leaves us vulnerable to manipulation.

There are a lot of attacks that some people would call terrorist attacks that others would not. Take Dylann Roof for example I personally consider his actions a terrorist attack. But I have had right wing people I know say that he's just mentally ill, which I feel is reductionist. If Reuters called Dylann Roof a terrorist, there would be people claiming that it has a liberal bias.

> call the slaughter of innocent people wrong. That's a value judgment that should be made.

That implies they'd have to start calling US drone strikes "terrorism" when they kill people who've not been identified as combatants in countries with which the US is not at war.

Then you'd probably call them even more left-leaning.

I haven't said anything about drone strikes, and I don't know why you have assumed what I think of them.

>I would hope that even journalistic objectivity has some limit, to the point that one could call the slaughter of innocent people wrong. That's a value judgment that should be made.

Why? What value does it add? As long as they provide the information that innocents were slaughtered, what's stopping you from adding the condemning language in your own head?

Aspiring to journalistic objectivity, I think you have a point.

My impression is that objective journalism is effectively dead, and that the choice of words used to describe things like this likely gives insight into journalists' political bias.

Besides that, what is objectivity? Is it pretending to be a hypothetical, non-human, universally objective observer that views the loss of human life no more important than a meteor smashing into a random asteroid? Is it required that one not condemn the slaughter of innocents to be considered objective? From that perspective, is murder even wrong?

Interesting questions to think about.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com