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StumbleUponNPR's Dvorkin Responds on "Extremist" Label
9/30/05
In his September 27 online column, NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin responded to FAIR's September 21 Action Alert regarding a Morning Edition report on terrorism that implied that only "extremist groups" perceived a connection between the recent London subway bombings and Britain's involvement in Iraq. Below is Dvorkin's response.
A 'FAIR' Question
One more issue from last week: the media watchdog group, FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), criticized NPR about a report that aired on Morning Edition on Sept. 15.
The report, by NPR's Corey Flintoff, referred to an anti-terrorism resolution being debated at the United Nations in light of last summer's bombings in London. The report went on to say that:
Some extremist groups say those bombings were a response to the U.S. and British military presence in Iraq.
Hundred of listeners and supporters of FAIR wrote to object to the phrase "extremist groups" to describe those who oppose the war in Iraq.
Paul Fiscella wrote:
Do you believe as [the] Flintoff report implies that only an "extremist" could acknowledge a connection between acts of terrorism and foreign policy? Please encourage NPR to air a clarification of Flintoff's remarks.
Ted Clark is the Deputy Foreign Editor at NPR:
I don't think a correction is warranted. There is no error...just a difference of interpretation... The author of the letter(s) interpreted the sentence as meaning 'that only terrorists or their sympathizers perceived such a connection.'
The fact that 'some extremist groups' perceive the connection does not rule out the possibility that non-extremists also perceive the connection. The sentence can also be interpreted this way: Extremist groups THAT ENDORSED THE BOMBINGS say they were a response to the U.S. and British military presence in Iraq. That is what we meant when we wrote the sentence. If we had wanted to say, 'only terrorists and their sympathizers perceive a connection between the bombings and the war,' we would have written the sentence that way. I will grant you that our sentence could have been written more precisely.
The fact that 'some extremist groups' perceive the connection does not rule out the possibility that non-extremists also perceive the connection. The sentence can also be interpreted this way: Extremist groups THAT ENDORSED THE BOMBINGS say they were a response to the U.S. and British military presence in Iraq. That is what we meant when we wrote the sentence. If we had wanted to say, 'only terrorists and their sympathizers perceive a connection between the bombings and the war,' we would have written the sentence that way. I will grant you that our sentence could have been written more precisely.
But the report was unclear and an editor should have caught the imprecision before it aired. I think NPR owes the listeners an on-air correction and clarification. The issue (the war in Iraq) is too important to be bogged down in editorial nuance, especially if the subtleties go unappreciated by the listeners.
FAIR thanks Dvorkin for raising the issue with an NPR editor and encouraging the network to air a correction and clarification. We would only add that the real problem with NPR's report was not that it didn't specify the type of "extremist groups" it was referring to, but that it framed the debate as one between terrorist sympathizers and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. As we explained in our alert, this leaves out the large majority of the public that agrees with neither.
Thanks as well to FAIR readers who wrote to Dvorkin in response to our alert.
See FAIR's Archives for more
on:
NPR
Iraq Occupation
War and Militarism
Official Agendas
Terrorism
Narrow Range of Debate
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