French news network Europe 1 has decided not to publish or broadcast the names of those who commit murder in the name of Islam.
This is a noble, but flawed, act of censorship.
It is undoubtedly the case that the deranged young men who have killed innocent people on French soil in the name of Allah this month have done so in the expectation that their names will be spread across all types of media.
Getting their names into the public domain is, of course, an important part of their warped ideology which serves twin purposes: the murderers want to be remembered; and those who control and influence them want to use their identities as propaganda tools after they have committed an atrocity to strike yet more fear into the hearts and minds of the peaceful majority.
Part of the reason that Europe 1 has concluded it is wrong to broadcast and publish the names of the terrorists is that its editor-in-chief, Nicolas Escoulan, believes those who consume the news his outlets provide – predominantly via its radio stations – may remember the name of the terrorist rather than his victims.
Escoulan told Channel 4 News last night: “I decided that giving their names was a way to glorify their act.”
He said he would happily provide all other details of the perpetrators – age, background, religion – but not their names.
This is arguably a clever move, depriving Islamic terror chiefs of some of the oxygen of publicity on which they rely, though Escoulan in fact says his main motivation is morality.
However, Europe 1‘s stance is flawed for two reasons.
Firstly, anyone who wants to know the name of an attacker will be able to find it out easily – indeed, they may have no choice in the matter if they are listening to a radio station other than Europe 1 or reading a website or newspaper which does publish the name of a terrorist.
Secondly, one only has to recall the broadcasting restrictions introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1988 to remember that such censorship was unsustainable then and is even more so now, in in our multi-media age.
Between 1988 and 1994, when the IRA’s bombing campaign in mainland Britain was at its height, the voices of the representatives of Sinn Fein were banned from being broadcast in the UK.
Broadcasters found a way around this government ban simply by filming interviews with Sinn Fein’s chiefs and replacing their voices with those of actors. The ban didn’t really work and, if anything, it drew more attention to the messages of Sinn Fein than it might have done otherwise.
This was a form of the Streisand effect, where an attempt to conceal something has the unintended consequence of attracting more publicity.
Added to this, most journalists agree that it is the job of news networks to report the news in its totality as objectively as possible, no matter how grim.
Europe 1 may quickly find that its moral stance serves little purpose, though many – even those who rigorously promote freedom of speech – will surely sympathise with its decision.
