Snipers from cyberspace (Updated)
THE DEBATE on how to deal with cyber-crime has given rise to comparisons between unseen and unnamed news-media sources and subjects on the one hand and arbitrary and untraceable operators on the other. Not only are the comparisons ignorant, they are perversely false. How at all can a dump be mentioned along with a profession? The issue, at any rate, can only be ignored at the risk of legitimizing by default a fast multiplying army headquartered cowardly on the safe, seedy side of cyberspace, a virtual world populated by real people, yet only scarcely governable, if at all, by the real world’s real authority.
It is a world without boundaries—a world indiscriminate and amoral: it admits anyone and, if he knows how to work the suitable weapons in its ever-growing technological armory, it allows him to pick his targets in the real world and to terrorize them. He’s not unlike a sniper, except that he has found a perfect perch, one where he’s invisible, virtual, unreal, but able to inflict real harm.
He’s a character who must, however, be set apart from his more decent neighbor, the self-identified dweller, the “blogger.” At any rate, his world is just too dark and big and complex to allow itself to be dealt with for the moment with any decisiveness. He is an absolute scum of both the earth and cyberspace, to be sure, but, being virtually unknowable, he can only be revealed as the criminal type that he is, the type to which the news media and the public at large should be constantly alert.
And for starters, he should be stopped from confusing and polluting the perfectly legitimate practice in the news media of concealing—and only in certain cases—the identities of their sources or subjects. Revealing or concealing is in fact a judgment made neither arbitrarily nor unilaterally, but according to set principles as well as case-by-case agreements. In other words, a process is in place, and both sides—the media and their sources or subjects—have a say in its application.
In a journalism manual I have brought out*, I have suggested specifically thus:
Don’t rely exclusively on sources who refuse to be named. Find sources willing to go on record to confirm or support the anonymous revelation. If you are left with no one else but them, make sure the following conditions are met before you write your story: (1) they have proved themselves consistently reliable; (2) the revelation of their identities can cause them trouble; (3) the story is supported with evidence that makes it credible enough by itself; and (4) it is of such urgent interest to the public that its publication can’t wait.
When describing an unnamed source, try to be as specific as the compromise allows you…. Don’t foist “informed,” “knowledgeable,” “reliable,” “high-placed,” and “authoritative” sources upon your audiences. They are all phantoms to them…
It is such rules that reflect the rigors journalists are made to work under, rigors that only match the freedom guaranteed them in the constitution as “the press,” a profession to all intents and purposes.
Possibly it was when “press” became “media” in general reference that the practice began to degenerate. It has found a nominal justification to admit entertainment; in fact showbiz tricks have been adopted, and showbiz people enlisted, for news. The consolation is, however low the practice has sunk, its practitioners are visible and knowable—they have names and faces.
But the sniper of cyberspace? He is the untouchable Frankenstein of media technology.
*Basic Journalism: An Asean Handbook, published in 1992 under the auspices of the Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Committee on Culture and Information—an updated edition has been completed and is now awaiting publication by the Center for Media Freedom & Responsibility.
Sniping anonymously or openly pandering to political agendas? The first one you can choose to ignore but the second one?