NYPost

THE TALIBAN'S TAKE ON A FREE PRESS

November 21, 2001 -- American media organizations lay claim to a standard of pure "objectivity" that sounds fine in theory, but is all too rarely found in nature.

Just a few weeks ago, Reuters global News Director Stephen Jukes stated that the news service would not use the word "terrorist" to describe the 9/11 hijackers:

"We all know that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. . . We're trying to treat everyone on a level playing field, however tragic it's been and however awful and cataclysmic for the American people and people around the world."

Now comes news that four journalists on assignment in Taliban-controlled Afganistan were pulled from their cars and machine-gunned - apparently by Taliban gunmen.

Ironically, given Jukes' views, the casualties included members of his own organization - Reuters' Harry Burton, an Australian television cameraman, and Azizullah Haidari, an Afghan-born photographer - as well as reporters from Spanish and Italian media.

These four deaths are unequivocal tragedies.

Period.

Make no mistake: Covering a war can be, at times, as dangerous as fighting in one; artillery doesn't discriminate.

But how often are war correspondents summarily executed?

Which is the point: The values of the two sides in this war are very different.

Al-Jazeera, the Arabic media organization, makes hardly any protestation about "objectivity." Yet, could any reasonable person ever imagine circumstances where "journalists" from al-Jazeera would be summarily executed by Western forces?

Accuracy must indeed be a chief goal for American media. But it is both accurate and objective to term Osama's al Qaeda minions "terrorists" (to say nothing of "vicious, murdering thugs").

Most Americans have had no trouble telling the good guys from the bad guys since 9/11.

Now maybe Reuters gets it, too.

-- Anonymous, November 21, 2001