Perhaps these short-enough-for-Twitter statements aren't ideal, because they can easily be construed as demanding retribution without due process. But the righteous indignation doesn't seem out of place. Not only are the killings themselves shocking, but the BBC alleges that the Cameroonian government was itself complicit in the cover-up by calling the viral video "fake news", and putting the burden of investigating its own military onto outsiders.
The BBC could have worded its closing tweet more clearly, but I don't think it's wrong for them to reiterate how rich it is for the Cameroonian gov't to make promises of fair trials when it seems to have done its damndest to avoid bringing justice at all.
I think even BBC is entitled to a certain amount of indignation after having watched a video where a lovely 9-year old girl is blindfolded and then shot.
Seems fine, unless you read it as them arguing that they should not be given a fair trial; I read it the opposite way, as them arguing that the women and children should have been.
And conversely, that idea didn't even occur to me, in the slightest, when I read those tweets. To me it's crystal clear that it's an expression of indignation at three civilians being murdered by way of comparison to the rights that the accused soldiers will receive, not a complaint that the government is giving them a fair trial.
Agree entirely. I viewed that as a series of statements showing the inequality. Not stating that the unfairness should be applied to the accused soldiers.
Most news agencies claim, on paper, to aim for impartiality. Emotional response tends to be the opposite of impartial reporting since emotions generally imply a moral response to something, which in turn is quickly stepping away from impartiality.
[1] BBC: Impartiality lies at the core of the BBC's commitment to its audiences.
[2] NPR: Our journalists conduct their work with honesty and respect, and they strive to be both independent and impartial in their efforts.
[3] SPJ (society of professional journalists): Journalists Should: ... Support the open and civil exchange of views, even views they find repugnant.
Many newspapers are archived online. It's really phenomenal to see the change in historic and modern reporting. For instance this [4] is the NYT's reporting on Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war that immediately followed. Keep in mind that this was shortly prior to the mass production of incredibly dehumanizing propaganda and us rounding up hundreds of thousands of people in the west coast who even looked remotely Japanese, telling them to take all they could carry, and throwing them into concentration camps. The point here is to emphasize what the zeitgeist was at that moment in time, yet their reporting remained remarkably true to the ethics most media still claims to hold to, yet rarely practice -- NYT now included among them.
> Emotional response tends to be the opposite of impartial reporting
"Impartial" is not the same as "unemotional". Part of the job of the news is to put what happens in context—not just what happened, but why it matters. News organizations aren't striving to be unfeeling automatons merely spitting out facts.
Here [1] are a wide variety of other articles from the NYT covering famous events throughout history. I think you'll find that the incredible reputation they built up was indeed driven by striving to do little other than impartially report on the facts. Which, in the past, they did an excellent job of. It sounds simple, but in many ways it's perhaps the hardest thing to do. Both from a business perspective, and from a human one.
This [2] is an absolutely phenomenal article by Robert Kaiser, "The Bad News About the News." Kaiser worked at the Washington Post for more than 50 years as a reporter and editor, leaving only shortly after Bezos purchased the company. It gets into all the facets of the rise and fall of the media, and why things have changed so markedly. I don't really think I can do it justice with cliff notes, other than to give it a strong recommendation if you're really interested in the history of all of this.
Emotions don't imply moral response. Emotions may be caused also by empathy, fear, threat, gain and so on. Impartial and independent are not the same as insisting that "both sides are the same" either.
In here, it is a reported a fact that killed women and children received no trial and no presumption of innocence. It highlights asymmetry between trial soldiers will (theoretically) receive and what they have done. That is perfectly fine.
If the reporting made you feel like what soldiers did is symmetrical to them being on trial, then the reporting would be biased.
> Support the open and civil exchange of views, even views they find repugnant.
That does not imply consumer should feel neutral about those repugnant views. If consumers feel neutral after hearing repugnant views, then journalist sugarcoated those views to make them look more innocent then they are.
Impartial reporting does not mean trying to make the reader remain emotionless or avoid coming to judgement. Facts themselves will frequently stir strong emotions. For instance in this incident even the most impartial reporting of the facts is likely to leave most readers with nothing short of disgust for the alleged offenders. The facts speak for themselves.
An excellent resource I linked above is this [1]. That's a series of historic articles from the NYT on famous events throughout history. You'll invariably find quite impartial articles, yet the facts themselves again speak quite loudly. This [2], for instance, is their reporting on the sinking of the Titanic. That is just an incredible piece of reporting. And though there are absolutely 0 emotional cues used or even implied, one can nonetheless 'feel' the story through the facts alone.
Media has a responsibility to present all facts impartially. But that does not mean that news media don't also have a responsibility to put those facts into context. Especially when it concerns the weak vs the strong (civilian victims vs violent government). That is what they are doing here. There is no encouragement to mete out revenge. It is juxtaposing the due process the alleged perpetrators will face with the lack of due process their victims suffered.
By the same token, if soldiers alleged of a war crime were found to have suffered from a miscarriage of justice, I'd expect the BBC to cover that side too—and I expect they would.
Those final statements on the Twitter thread stuck out for me too - they seemed a little incongruous. But they're taken (as is the entire thread) from the BBC Africa video, where they actually make perfect sense as the closing remarks.
I watched the video; they seem to have the same sense there as they do on Twitter.
I don't actually think the BBC is suggesting the soldiers should be executed out of hand, but I think it weakens the story---I don't need the interpretation, thanks.
It did, but in a different tone. I understand the quoted letter as a sarcastic “they ‘enjoy’ it but that will not last long”. And then reporter takes these words and puts them in a sense of “a government makes clear that they will enjoy poi and fair trial” literally, as if government liked that and “fair” meant “good for them”. That seems like standard low-grade journalism, and like it was done here. Not that we shall not forgive that, but still.
To "enjoy" something can just mean to have the benefit of it. I don't think either the government statement or the BBC's quote meant to imply that the men would be literally enjoying themselves.
Why? It's worth pointing out. Just because some topic is emotionally heavy, doesn't mean other aspects of it can't or shouldn't be pointed out. It bothers me when someone may make a noteworthy point, and then someone else tries to make some inference on how they feel in general by compliment of what they didn't reference.
It bothers me because of a widespread and damaging tendency to focus on second order ethical issues rather than the main point. Instead of talking about what actually happened, people talk about how what happened is presented or the precise words that are chosen, how the same thing happened elsewhere in a way that attempts to make the speaker appear a hypocrite, or the identity of the person who presented it.
This happens all the time in the media and politics, and often involves deliberately uncharitable interpretations of what was said.
Well-put. To state that our ethical standard must be vigilantly maintained goes without saying. To put the treatment of these cold-blooded killers first is unnerving at best.
On the other hand, this seems to be...below...the BBC:
"The government statement makes clear that all these men enjoy the presumption of innocence, and that they will be given a fair trial."
"The two women killed outside Zelevet received no trial at all.
"No presumption of innocence was extended to the children who died with them."