PressEthic

There has been a controversy brewing around the fact that President Bush ‘allegedly’ made a statement about wanting to bomb Al-Jazeerah, during a conversation that took place between him and Tony Blair in April, 2004.

The online edition of the British paper The Times ran a story on the issue, which was a classic case of doing all kinds of damage, and leaking all sorts of information without actually leaking any information.

Their report claimed that newspaper editors were being ‘threatened with prosecution’ if they published the details of the conversation.

NEWSPAPERS editors were threatened with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act last night if they published details of a conversation between Tony Blair and George Bush in which the President is alleged to have suggested bombing al-Jazeera, the Arab news network. Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney-General, informed newspapers editors including that of The Times that “publication of a document that has been unlawfully disclosed by a Crown servant could be in breach of Section 5 of the Official Secrets Act.”

I don’t understand how publishing the conversation itself, could now do significantly more damage than what has already been done. According to this story, it seems that not only was President Bush allegedly planning to bomb the Al-Jazeerah office, but now there is substantial effort underway to silence anyone who wants to publish the details of the alleged conversation, thereby lending some credence to the story.

It is a particularly smart piece of journalism, where the conversation has not actually been published, but it has been effectively implied that it could be true.

Al-Jazeera has angered the US Administration by broadcasting video messages from Osama bin Laden and footage of dead and injured Iraqi civilians.

It has also rejected through an effective use of quotes that the president was jesting, when he made this particular statement ( my first reaction was also, oh he must have been joking). The story quoted Peter Kilfoyle, the Labour MP for Liverpool Walton and a former Defence Minister.

“This is a matter of great interest. There was an attack on the hotel in Baghdad used by al-Jazeera journalists which caused great controversy. The US also attacked a Serbian TV station (during the Kosovo war). It is easy to dismiss this as a glib comment, but I don’t find it very funny at all,” he said.

This story raises the very valid question of reporting potentially false information. There is no way of verifying the validity of the alleged statement, which the White House has dismissed as ‘outlandish’. However, the story is still extremely effective in a way as it has put a finger on the pulse of the problem, and made all kinds of subtle statements without stepping over the line.