Terrorism, censorship and the U.S. press corps

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Abstract
During recent years, government officials, lawyers, political scientists, law enforcement officials and journalists have participated in an important dialogue about U.S. press coverage of terrorism. The dialogue's influence is contributing to the "voluntary" adoption of guidelines for coverage of terrorism by the U.S. press corps. Many of the proposed guidelines threaten the freedom of the news media to act as objective observers of terrorist episodes. The guidelines also con tribute to the press corps' inability to recognize and differentiate between the various types of terrorist acts. Thus, there is a need for U.S. journalists to develop an understanding of the types of terrorists. Further, in order to report adequately terrorist episodes, the U.S. news media need to provide more and better contextual information about terrorist organizations. Through these means citizens and policy makers can make better decisions regarding terrorists - and the problems that spawn them. In addition to documenting the breadth and character of the volun tary guidelines dialogue, this article presents a set of model guidelines for reporting about terrorists and their activities.

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