The University of Essex invited David Anderson to our Lakeside theatre to give the students of Essex and other members of the public a powerful lecture on his experiences with reporting terrorism in the past 30 years. This was an amazing opportunity for student journalists in their first year with a vision of reporting either crime, war or, the unfortunate event of terrorism. David gave us an in depth idea as to what this entails and the dangers included.
David Anderson KBE QC a reporter of terrorism and life peer seemed the best person to give advice and answer any questions. Anderson was a student journalist himself and has done his fair share of reporting terrorism in his career. Anderson suggested that when reporting a form of terrorism there is an intimate relationship with the subject of the report when conducting the piece - this was something that fascinated me.
There has been a fair share of terrorism attacks in the past 30 years - some closer to home than others. One particular attack took place in our home town Colchester which involved a bomb exploding under a car. That isn't the only attack that has caused catastrophic injuries and harm to people; other UK terrorist attacks such as Manchester Arena, London Westminster, London Bridge attack, Finsbury Park among others.
According to David, terrorism is a unique crime, appearance matters more than the reality of the attack, more often that not, the attack is to make a statement rater than actual cause harm. With that being said, 'ISIS' is the most commonly known name in the world. Is this a good thing?
He went on to give some important statistics which can only be described as heartbreaking. 89 lives have been taken in the last 17 years in ISIS muslim attacks such as 7/7 bombing and the Manchester Arena. In the US there has been 10 deaths since the 9/11 twin tower attack. In addition to this, Anderson described the killing of Joe Cox as "taking hate crime across the line to terrorism."
Anderson spoke about the grief experienced by those affected by the outcome of the terrorist's statement, suggesting that "grief is the same regardless of the motive of death." This was an interesting point to make as it sparked thoughts in the audience.
Terrorism motives was the point of discussion - Anderson listed the 3R's. Revenge, Renown and Reaction. In terms of reaction this is perhaps the main motive behind most terrorist attacks. Generally they are looking for a large reaction from the public which in their eyes spreads awareness on their meaning behind the attack. Anderson suggested that a visual representation is perhaps the best outcome for a terrorist attack, "terrorist only need people watching - not people dead". Something like the media coverage of the Twin Towers is perfect for terrorists, again I found this a really interesting concept.
David Anderson gave a powerful analogy about the idea of terrorism as a whole - imagine a fly trying to ruin a china shop; the fly alone is too weak to cause enough harm for people to notice. So the fly gets inside the Bull's ear as they hold more power to cause maximum damage and force people into overreaction.
Anderson went on to suggest there are other important factors when it comes to reporting journalism, for example, social media. When officially reporting journalism via the news or online broadcasting there are certain protocols/codes such as Ofcom and Ispo which both serve as good benchmarks when reporting journalism. They each have independent and impartial rules that must be followed. However, with social media there are no rules so to speak. There is the constant temptation to bend the rules slightly, by having an opinion and passing comment.
I could continue and write about all the important information David Anderson gave, but we'd be hear all day. I just wanted to end this post by saying how it really was a lecture that I came away from and didn't stop thinking about. Although I haven't thought about going down the route of reporting crime, war or terrorism it gave me food for thought. It also made me think about the different risks journalists are faced with when trying to report such matters and the pure danger they are put in.
Thanks for reading.
EB
