 Felly, rydw i'n ddweud yn gweithio i'r parlymyniol Llywodraeth, ac yr enw i'n ddubyddol, yn gweithio i'n ddweud i'r parlymyniol yng nghymru i'r Gweithgrifennol, a i'r grannu dechrau yng Nghymru yn 2015 ac yn ddiwrn yn y ddiwrnodau diolch yn ddiwrnodau diolch. Felly, rydw i'n gwneud hynny'r ddoddau diwrnodau diolch yn ddiwrnodau diwrnodau diwrnodau diolch. eraf yw'r eiséu'r cyllidei ar hyn yn yr alunion yr hyn. Mae gwaith o'ch prysgwzion i'r Cymru hefyd, a'r tyfnod, ym mhobl i'r ddylch yn canu'r gwneud ym mhobl i'r ddiweddau i ddigwyddig ein hydРЕ, a chyconfio'r Slygaeth ychydig sydd ymrhyngau a'n mynd i'r amlion ohefion i niw. With school pupils, 128 teams representing schools from around the country set out on the road to Holyrood In November last year. 32 cancelled first round heats, 16 second round heats and 4 semifinals have now whittled the field down to 4 talented teams We're going to be competing in this evening's grand final Felly wrth gwrs, mwy gydwyr yw'r fanolɪst, ac rwyf meddwlwyntu ym mwy iawn mi ar gyflwyno i amlwgion yn sefydliad ar gyflwyno gael. Ac mae wych yn ddefnyddio bod yn chi ddechrau'n gwybod mewn oesol iawn mwyau ar gyflwyno'r gael. Mae gwestiynau eich gwahodd mwy o gyfarfodol i'r gyflwyno a gydagwyr mwyaf i'r cyff favour o ddod i'r ddael i ymddarrion. at the society for all of their hard work and their efforts in this regard. I would also like to thank the tournament sponsors, Hodder Gibson Publishers and the Glasgow Bar Association for their much-valued support. Following the untimely death of Donald Dewar, Scotland's first First Minister in the early years of this Parliament, this debating tournament was then dedicated to Donald's memory. I had the privilege of knowing Donald personally as I was, like him, elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999. Donald Dewar was a student of history and law and practised as a solicitor in between periods of serving as a member of the House of Commons, where he represented seats in Aberdeen and Glasgow before he became an MSP. He was a member of the Glasgow University Dialectic Society, and he was a frequent participant in its debates, alongside contemporaries, many of whom have gone on into high-profile jobs in politics, law and the media. Donald Dewar taint his passion for debating right through his political career in the House of Commons and, of course, in the early days of this Parliament. In his maiden speech in the new Scottish Parliament, Donald stated, today there is a new voice in the land, the voice of a democratic Parliament, a voice to shape Scotland, a voice for the future. I think that it is fitting, therefore, that occupying the seats of our parliamentarians tonight are potentially the lawmakers, the politicians and the lawyers of the future. I think that it is also fitting that this chamber continues to reverberate to the sound of a new generation of debaters through this annual competition. I hope that this experience has a positive and lasting effect on all of your futures. Finally, joining us in the public gallery this evening are many proud parents, classmates and teachers. It is wonderful to see all of you here tonight as well, and I hope that you enjoy your evening here at Holyrood. I wish all of the finalists the very best of luck and I hope that you all have a really enjoyable evening here tonight in your Scottish Parliament. Thank you all very much. I congratulate the four schools who have made it through to the final, so they are Pressweek Academy, Madras College, Lanark Grammar and St Mary's Music School. Congratulations to all of you. I will now outline the format of the debate. I will call on the first proposition speaker to speak and they will have six minutes. I will then call on the first opposition speaker to speak and they will also have six minutes, and that is repeated then for the second proposition and the second opposition speaker. Then, after that, we will open the debate to the floor. During those four speeches, I will verbally announce when your first minute is up, and this will indicate that interventions are now permitted should you wish to take them. I will also verbally indicate when you have entered your last minute, and at that point no interventions will be taken. When your six minutes is up, I will ask you to wind up, and if you continue further, I will ask you again to wind up after 30 seconds. Please remember that I am quite well experienced in keeping my fellow MSPs to time. With plenty of clocks round the chamber, I would expect our debaters to please observe your time limits. The debate will then, after that, be opened up to the floor for a further 15 minutes before we hear the reply speeches from the opposition and the proposition. The reply speeches should last no more than three minutes. There will be no interventions in those speeches, and I will verbally announce when you have entered your last minute. I would also encourage as many of you as possible to participate in the floor debate and bear in mind that the judges will award a £50 book voucher to the best speaker from the floor over the course of this evening. It is worth your while to think about participating. I would like to remind the teams that it is your choice if you choose to respond to any points raised during the floor debate, but please be aware that your performance will not be judged on the floor debate. The motion for debate today is this House would restrict media coverage of terrorist attacks. Our Presiding Judge is Stephen Docherty, Head of Conflict Resolution at Right Johnston MacKenzie. He will be joined by John Guy, former chairman of the English Speaking Union in Scotland, Irene McGrath, chair of the Scottish School's International Debating Council and Rob Marge, former speeches and debates officer at the English Speaking Union in Scotland. I hope that that is all clear. I will try to clarify it further as we go along if necessary. Could I now ask Madras College and Presswick Academy to leave the chamber through the door at the back? After they do so, we will commence with the first debate. Walking across the floor is not usually allowed when the Parliament is in session, but I think that we can allow it on this occasion. I would like to call on Anna Mickels from St Mary's Music School to open the debate as the first proposition. Anna, six minutes please. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, Deputy Presiding Officer and honourable judges. I would like to propose to you the motion that this House would restrict media coverage of terrorist attacks. Terrorism, defined by the 2000 act, is an attack or threat designed specifically to manipulate the Government or to intimidate the public. According to the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, the current risk of terrorism is severe in the UK, meaning that although there is no current risk, an attack is highly likely. Furthermore, in the last 14 years, seven counter-terrorism bills have been passed. These frightening facts only clarify and show that terrorism is an extremely current issue and something has to be done. The problem is that the media is only worsening the issue. Currently, the media's use of extreme language and excessive amount of information is not only striking fear into the public but is also giving the terrorists exactly what they want. By media, we mean legitimate sources of news, this being newspapers and their online equivalents and all television and radio news from the United Kingdom—sources of information that we trust for their reliability. According to the Ofcom News consumption report, 95 per cent of adults follow the news. Over a quarter of the same adults said that the BBC was the most important news source to them. Reliable news sources such as the BBC are respected and are used every day by a significant majority of our nation. The significant trust that we place in those sources shows how easily influenced we are and shows how easily influenced we can be to terrorism publicity. Our team for the proposition would propose a new law whereby when an attack is taken place, only the most basic factual details would be publicised on legitimate sources of news. Those factual details being that the attack is taken place, the time and destination of the attack and the number of people killed or injured. To say that we are not denying the public information, merely denying those terrorists the oxygen and publicity on which they thrive. I's first proposition would like to talk about why a new law would decrease the fear that our society lives on and also why the law would improve effective government decisions. My partner Richard will then go on to talk about the benefits that this new law would have on society. Every day people watch the news to see what's going on in the world and they have this right. The propositioner are in no means trying to take away this right, but every day people are being terrorised by media coverage of terrorist attacks. If people don't see things or if they don't get a full description then would they not imagine things and potentially think that it was worse than it was? The thing is this extra information that you are supposedly saying that we need to have is not actually beneficial to anybody's view, in fact it's just increasing fear and it's also making stereotypes much more fearful, which is what Richard will go on to say. For example, this tragedy, this fear that we're talking about was recently represented in that Charlie Hebdo tragedy in France. The tragedy had a huge response from the media in the UK. Headlines in the newspapers the following day were things such as massacred at work, barbaric, war on freedom, this kind of language is completely and utterly petrifying and again the media have let exactly the kind of publicity the terrorists want. Of course we all know headlines is extreme and dramatic and petrifying is this will sell money but I put it to you that if the media coverage was to be restricted to the basic information the mere facts this kind of behaviour would have much less impact and potentially decrease the number of these atrocities. The first duty of government is to keep a country safe and yet as I said earlier with the current risk of a terrorist attack it's severe we're far from this. Terrorists commit these atrocities to manipulate the government by using threats until they've done exactly what they want. The government sometimes has to make impossible decisions, ones which although may seem horrific and inhumane to the media are only made to fulfil their first duty or safety. By sensationalising terrorist attacks media continuously puts unjust pressure on the government at a time when they have to make crucial decisions. If this pressure was lifted the government would be able to make these decisions far more effectively, subsequently securing a safer environment for us to live in. In matters of national security the government does not have to let the public know every detail when it regards to terrorism. Restrictions are already in place whereby the need to know policy filters out information that the public can and cannot know and this policy has been proven extremely important if not vital to events in the past. In world war 2 information was withheld from the public for their own safety. If this information had been published not only would they have been extremely terrified but their safety would have been compromised. There are constant issues in the media so one may ask why terrorism? Why is this such a big issue? Why does it stand out from the other others? I put it to you that this stands out because it challenges the right to life. Human right number three states, we all have the right to life and to live in freedom and safety. If we can do something to reduce or even stop terrorist attacks occurring it is our duty as a nation and a government to do it. After all without this fundamental right all of the others would be meaningless. Theresa May our current home secretary said we must act together as a nation to confront, challenge and defeat terrorism and all its forms and stand up and speak out for our fundamental values. Let us confront terrorism by standing up and speaking for our rights and challenge the media to sit down. Thank you for listening and I urge you to vote for the proposition. Thank you very much Anna. Now could I ask Rachel Miller from Lanark Grammar to please respond as the first opposition speaker. Rachel, six minutes please. Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Tonight my colleague Rihanna and I will be opposing the motion. I'm going to talk about the importance of freedom of speech and highlight the potentially detrimental impacts of censorship of the media. Later this evening Rihanna will be discussing the significance of terrorism as a news story and highlight the potentially detrimental impacts further of censoring terrorism but also discuss the positive impacts of public awareness of terrorism. However before I begin my arguments tonight I would like to offer some points of rebuttal. The proposition have said that we're only going to see extra information that isn't beneficial. I want to know how the proposition planned to decide what is beneficial and what is not. It is not up to the government or a body which has not been identified by the proposition to decide what is beneficial for the people. It's up to the executives in big companies such as the BBC but also the viewers because things like the BBC are a business so it's going to be what the viewers want to see that they are going to show. They also talked about how the Charlie Hebdo coverage created fear. However we also saw the Juswi Charlie march and many cases where there was common humanity that rose above terrorism. I would question whether or not this would be included as essential information for the public. Finally they talked about how the government restrict information which is clearly vital to safety. However this would not be the media and the government are not the same thing so we can't restrict journalists from showing information because they're not going to have the information that's vital to our safety. The government and the media are two separate things. No thank you. Ladies and gentlemen freedom of speech and of the press is one of the fundamental pillars of democratic society both in the UK and the wider world. It is an undeniable truth that this motion will by its very nature limit the extent to which the freedom of the press and of individuals to share their experiences. We are on the opposition field that allowing such a restriction of a fundamental right is allowing terrorists to achieve their aims. We cannot support terrorists in their desire to disrupt daily life and democracy by limiting freedom of speech. We do not intend to limit freedom of speech. What we intend to limit is the detrimental effects of terrorism and the fear that they produce in our society. If you're limiting what the media can and cannot say and you're limiting it to basic information then you are limiting the freedom of the speech of the journalists and of the media. You are still limiting it. The European Parliamentary Assembly Committee on Culture, Science and Education in a report on media and terrorism states that terrorism should not affect the importance of freedom of expression and information in the media as one of the essential foundations of democratic society. This freedom carries with it the right of individuals to be informed on matters of public concern including terrorist acts and threats. Ladies and gentlemen it is clear that we as part of a democratic society do have the right to be informed on significant events such as terrorism and to surrender such a right would be dangerous. We are concerned it would be dangerous because it is unclear whether or not victims of terrorist attacks would still have a platform upon which to share their experiences under this motion. If the motion restricts coverage to only basic details does that include victims sharing their experiences or witnesses sharing what they have seen the proposition have not explained where the line is going to be drawn and therefore there is the risk that victims could be criminalised or at least restricted. If a victim decided to share their loss with a newspaper or a witness with the BBC would they be viewed as criminals having broken the law which restricts media coverage to only basic information. Ladies and gentlemen we cannot support a motion which has the potential to criminalise victims. Censorship could also have the impact of ignorance with regards to terrorism. We want to criminalise innocent individuals this is why we're creating a piece of legislation which will be enforced by the government and therefore becomes the government responsibility and they won't let their people become criminals. I think there's a lot of criminals at the moment but the point is if you haven't defined what basic information is going to be so a victim discussing their loss might not be viewed as basic information and you haven't given us the information and the details in your definition of the motion to decide whether or not victims are going to be criminalised and they'll thank you and if something is legislation and you go against that that is breaking the law so you would be criminalised but in any case they're still going to be restricted. Now with regards to the ignorance if you or I were in an airport for example and saw an unattended bag or other suspicious activity we would report it. Hopefully it would be innocuous but it's always better to be overcastious than complacent which is exactly what would occur under this motion as people would not have a realistic knowledge of terrorism. Most importantly there have been instances where public awareness of terrorism has led to lives being saved due to coverage. For example following the Boston Marathon bombings pictures of the escaped terrorist will broadcast on every channel. The unprecedented manhunt which ensued ultimately ended when a member of the public recognised the suspect from media coverage and was able to contact the police who captured him. Had there not been such a high volume of media coverage it is highly likely that that man would not have recognised the terrorist who could have gone on to commit other horrific acts. Indeed he confessed to having planned to bomb Times Square after the Boston Marathon the unprecedented loss of life which would have undoubtedly occurred was prevented in part due to media coverage. This coverage also made sure that people stayed safe as it was through the media that the police informed citizens to stay inside and that public transport and services were closing. Therefore you can see that as well as there been many positive impacts of media coverage there were also the dangerous impacts of censorship so I urge you to support the opposition. Thank you. Thank you very much Rachel. Can I now invite Richard Montgomery, second proposition speaker to give us his views please. Richard, six minutes. Good evening ladies and gentlemen and thank you very much for your attention in this debate so far. I think it's quite clear from what we've heard at the moment that I have an immediate duty as the opposition seems unclear about our definition of motion and I'm actually going to read out what Anna has already said. Our team for the proposition would propose a new law whereby when an attack is taken place only the most basic factual details would be published on legitimate sources of news. These factual details being that the attack has taken place, the time and the location of the attack number of people killed or injured. So really to put it in even more simple terms just for the clarification of everyone we're going to report where when number of casualties. That is all because that removes any ambiguity and will keep our people safe by not exacerbating the fear which is already existing in our society as I'm going to show. Society is really what I want to focus on in this secondary case for the proposition. At the moment we've already looked at this from a perspective of national security and that's both proposition and opposition I'm talking about. Yes please. So you have clarified then that you would be restricting victims because they would not be allowed to express their experiences through media because they are of course only allowed date, time and place. What was also clarified in our definition was that we will be restricting legitimate sources of media as identified by the Ofcom news consumption report. So therefore social media will be open to these people. We want to be able to embrace these, well I say embrace these atrocities, be welcoming to the people who have suffered from them. Yes please. Eat is a well respected source. So what if victims want to talk to the BBC or another media outlet because they would have a wider coverage and some victims want to explain their loss? I can understand that need to explain very clearly. As I said there are other ways of going about this, perhaps talking to an actual person would be more beneficial. I just feel that the way that the mainstream media which we look up to and respect which we see as legitimate is then enhancing fear as I'm about to talk about. So Anna has already demonstrated how the sensational reporting of the media exacerbates this fearful atmosphere in our population and how this plays into the hands of the terrorists. We can't get away from the terrorists. I respect you greatly for your altruistic motives in protecting the victims but we have to remember the terrorists at the heart of this. We cannot play into their hands and that is exactly what the media does by enhancing the fear which we experience but furthermore this fear creates a huge obstacle to achieving equality and interracial harmony. What we see and there are numerous examples just I mean it's 10 years ago now I think the July the 7th bombings but it's still resonating today and although in itself the attack was horrific the events which spiralled out of it were equally as bad we saw huge spikes in racial incidents towards Muslim communities. No thank you. Because of the way that the media was portraying this as a Muslim attack this is why we want to restrict it to far more basic details just the essence of the story not saying who is doing this. It is enough to know that there are terrorists threatening our peace and therefore we can leave it to the government who have greater freedom then to deal with the issue. So that's one problem which our society is facing at the moment these stereotypes which are creating obstacles to equality which is something which is in the news all the time now. No thank you but another one which we are facing and perhaps more alarming is the radicalisation of our vulnerable people. Now there are radicalisation is a very complex issue but what we are interested in is why do people get why do people get there in the first place it's often cited that material on the internet can cause people to become radicalised but why are they looking for it in the first place well actually there's been a great deal of recent research into this field for example the findings of internationally renowned terrorism expert Martha Crenshaw and what we are now discovering is that the evidence which explains radicalisation is pointing towards social alienation and what is that reminding me of the fear that the exacerbated media reportings no thank you are creating by portraying terrorists as particular minority groups at the moment it's Muslims in the past it's been the IRA and various other organisations by giving this unrepresentative view and it is unrepresentative this may shock you to learn it certainly did me that in the last five years less than two percent of all terrorist attacks in Europe have been perpetrated by Muslims that is a fact which is not being represented by our mainstream media at the moment so therefore we don't want to give them the option of being disproportionate and unrepresentative so that's where we're seeing this directly to the media it's reinforcing these stereotypes and as a result of it we're creating more fear and more moral panic so it's acting out in a spiral we see fear across our country society as a whole this fear alienates people and the alienation causes radicalisation which causes further terrorism in a tragic self-fulfilling prophecy so in proposing this motion we have shown you that this is a current problem remember that terrorism risk at the moment in the UK is severe but we have provided a solution as Anna has said the media's coverage of terrorist attacks impacts national security and as i hope i have now made clear it goes beyond this by deeply affecting the way our society organises itself restricting media coverage of terrorist attacks will resolve this issue thank you very much for listening thank you very much Richard can i now ask Rihanna McGrath second opposition speaker to address us please sorry six minutes Rihanna thank you good evening ladies and gentlemen deputy Presiding Officer fellow debaters tonight the motion stands before us which threatens our freedom of speech and information criminalises victims by denying the media coverage of their experiences and puts at risk the safety of the general public therefore tonight i am going to discuss some of the reasons why this act would not only be foolish but may result in a number of dangerous repercussions however firstly i would like to offer some points of rebuttal the proposition has said that the public safety would be compromised or has been compromised by media coverage but in what way does knowledge compromise people's safety i have to ask also you've said that victims instead of talking to the media should talk to an actual person that that would be more beneficial for them well of course we're assuming that these people have been through incredibly traumatic experiences and would of course be talking to somebody else but it is important for them to share with the public what they have suffered through and in effect it actually helps people to come together to come together and fight terrorism together ladies and gentlemen terrorism is no longer just a political struggle it's not a war time event it's happening all around us terrorists walk into our daily lives it's in a coffee shop in Australia it's in a kosher deli in France or a journalist's office in Paris and even in the streets of London terrorism is among us and it is our right not only to share our personal experiences of terrorism through the media but it is also our right to hear it to see it and to listen to one another otherwise we become complacent about an issue of national security which puts at risk innocent people from potentially preventable attacks some fear the recruitment of our young citizens through social media which you have touched upon but the coverage of terrorism given giving terrorists what is called the oxygen of publicity is as much a weapon in our hands as it is in theirs social media is a counterintelligence nightmare for islamic state militants as former fbi official Clint Watts points out social media offers a window into what's going on in Iraq and Syria right now intelligence services no thank you can use social media to determine the identities of supporters and potential recruits flagging individuals not previously on the government's radar and using data analysis to trace entire networks of contacts furthermore they can communicate anonymously with actual potential terrorists feeding the misinformation yes we're not we're not for the purposes of this debate we're not talking about internet we're saying internet can have opinions expressed really on it we're talking about legitimate sources of news stuff that we can censor that we can control i understand that you made this point but i'm afraid Richard also brought up social media in his debate and i feel like if you feel it's important to touch on then i also feel it is important to touch on internationally renowned security technologist brishnear has said the danger of not reporting on terrorist attacks is greater than the risk of continuing to report them freedom of the press is a security measure the only tool we have to keep our government honest is public disclosure once we start hiding pieces of reality from the public either through legal censorship or self-imposed restraint we end up with a government that acts based upon secrets and decides what the public should or should not know yes about that enhances our our understanding of terrorism is completely false well not completely false but is giving a completely disproportionate view of terrorism as richard said the 2% less than 2% of muslims that didn't commit the majority of these crimes on the opposition here we don't condemn muslims we don't believe that there's a strong racial hatred towards muslims generated by media coverage of terrorism terrorism itself may you know occur from muslim origin but it's not technically the religion as has been established quite recently in the news it is more a culture that which has evolved from the religion and of course the religion preaches peace as well as any other religion christianity hinduism and so we we don't believe that that that there is some kind of racial discrimination here it's it's not based on that the media doesn't focus on that the media focuses on positive impacts and therefore we on the opposition believe that the restriction of media coverage on terrorism would not only close the door for intelligence services to gain insight into terrorist movements but it would also have a hugely negative impact on the way our society collectively views the government and would only serve to break down the fundamental pillars of freedom of speech democracy which support our system of government ladies and gentlemen attempting to prevent the public from facing the realities of events of events in the international world is doomed to fail people will always face exposure to terrorism preventing this freedom of information could have the negative impacts on our society that Rachel and I have already highlighted tonight however media coverage of these attacks often focuses on the silver linings at surface the humanity which is ironically brought out in society when we experience tragedy the media doesn't focus on the attackers themselves nor the gory violent details it focuses on the heroes who emerge to help others in times of such complete horror for example the media coverage of the terrorist attack on Glasgow airport in 2007 was centred on a baggage handler who risked his life to prevent a terrorist attack which could have killed hundreds of people the name of that man is still engraved in the minds of the nation most people in this room will still remember the heroic actions of john smithon even eight years after the attack but can anyone remember the names of the two terrorists to include please another example is the positive impact that we had in with the twin towers where 300 charities were set up to aid the victims and heroes of 9 11 they raised together 2.8 billion dollars and this was created by the storm of media attention the attack generated without the media none of this would have been possible so thank you for listening tonight and i would urge you to support the opposition thank you very much riana and thank you to all of our speakers i am now about to open up the debate to the floor and this will last for around 15 minutes i'm going to invite speakers from the floor to raise points in relation to the debate and if you would like to contribute then please raise your hand if you're selected then you should wait for the red light to come on and the microphone in front of you stand up tell the chamber your name and the name of your school before you raise your point that is if you're able to stand up if you're not able to stand up then you can remain seated contributions should be short because then i can hopefully try and fit as many in as possible you want to contribute teams can choose to respond to the point but the performance is not judged against the response or teams can simply choose to concentrate on reply speeches which are marked there's going to be a £50 book talking for the best floor speech of the evening and so i will now ask our timekeeper to start the clock and i will monitor for 15 minutes thank you show of hands please for anyone who wishes to contribute okay young man at the back could we have the microphone thank you so the legislation is current form that sort of removes people's right to access the press media in this or sort of removes the press media's right to cover this of these events will push people on to social media which is unregulated full of in fact sort of embellishment and exaggeration so you're taking people people being informed on these matters from regulated media by off con to people who to being moved on to social media this totally unregulated and full of made-up opinion and extremist opinion this is only going to damage the extremist debate in this country even further by making a more misinformed population yes thanks could to have your name please Andrew school sorry Daniel Craig and Robert Gordon's college thank you very much any other points okay young man second row here um Anthony Welsh Robert Gordon's college um the second proposition speaker touted the media that the menace of the media is being responsible for racial inequality and racial tensions that have existed but surely the gentleman would agree that fundamentally the problem arises because those who choose to act under the banner of extremism and fundamentalism do so and to embrace ignorance is no solution surely he would agree that merely reporting the facts i a terrorist attack is what generates the tension as opposed to any kind of bias or misreporting on the part of the media okay thank you can i just reiterate if our teams do wish to respond then they would have to catch my eye to do so please can i see another show of hands yep young man here um Callen Fairburn Falkirk I the proposition said there that um i would talk about the dangers um that the media reporting on terrorist events is having but then said that they would allow this to go on unhindered via social media and internet surely in the modern world where the vast majority of people have twitter accounts facebook accounts all sorts of social media is pointless to say the media cannot report things um but it can continue unhindered on social media okay thank you very much and behind the young man behind jason woods clifton hall school so um the proposition mainly the second speaker talked a lot about the fear and why this is a reason that we should restrict media coverage but a lack of information would increase fear is people fear what they don't know so having everything out of the open and having everything be more transparent would be a better remedy for the fear than trying to stage a cover-up over details in order to stop sensationalism as in a balanced farms the well-being of our citizens to not have him living in fear is far more important than any risk of terrorists being regarded as martyrs thank you very much if i could have another show of hands a bit concerned about the gendered balance this evening and young women neith mcferston from them firm on high school and the point on social media has been touched on briefly by the proposition there and we all know how unreliable policies like facebook and twitter can be and surely a lack of information from reliable sources such as the bbc would can cause people to look online for more of these sources which might be false and surely that would have the opposite effect of trying to calm people down it could encourage more sort of wild and over enthusiastic reports that people online could have posted thank you many thanks young man in the middle alexander mclarin st mary's music school in a world where national security is far from transparent we have gchq and the american never say anything the nsa is surely a government which pretends that it's being transparent about issues of national security is entirely hypocritical in pretending that it's giving everybody the information that is there thank you for your contribution can i see some more hands please young woman right at the back um linda nixon robert godin's college um there was a point sorry there was the point made about radicalisation early in the debate and um i thought that the um that this point was raised by the proposition who said that social media and internet are often causes of um causes of radicalisation they sort of encourage young people especially to become radicalised however i feel that this was not really addressed under the definition and the and the mech of the motion social media would not be restricted in any way and would perhaps be used um more as a form of media as the legitimate media would would be restricted so people would turn to social media more so that i feel that if this um if we accept the premise that radicalisation comes from social media and internet surely that this probably wouldn't then be worsened by the motion many thanks um young man here thank you thank you Lewis Cloughden from on high school um surely this information you're limiting the media to the basic facts people all want to know more than that they want to know how it happened who happened and they want to look on the line for us and people will start rumours there'll be incorrect facts put out people will start to get fearful over the stuff they don't know and the facts that are not actually true they have been put out to them they'll grow more afraid of the lies than of the truth thank you very much uh young woman three back i think if you want to get on your feet yep i'm Caitlyn Browning lannock grammar um would you encourage children not go looking for information such as myself or as another person has pointed out make-up rumours on social sites such as um guessing what has happened or guessing information or guessing who's done it and such as um pointing out religions would young children not be offended by um people targeting certain religions thank you thank you very much uh gentlemen at the back here hello i'm Calum Bell from hill park secondary school i'd just like to say you can restrict larger media companies from covering certain terrorist attacks but you can't restrict uh individual reporters from going and covering these events so all you're doing is discouraging competition with these events and you're just going to people get wise to this and they'll just be pushed towards smaller more independent media sites so it's not really going to do anything thanks thank you very much for your contribution and young man in the middle the second proper sturtwood lannock grammar people the second proposition said that Muslims have started fear due to the media showing coverage of terrorist attacks but just saying this isn't implying that all Muslims are a terrorist as he didn't say certain part groups of Muslims and just plain Muslims thank you very much young woman here so if you met a lannock grammar the proposition both said that terrorism is current but surely the role of the media is to report what's current in detail thank you and behind you i think we can all agree that radicalisation and extremist and extremism in social media strikes food into the public as well as the fact that the unknown strikes food into into the public so by restricting the media surely aren't you just in aren't you just increasing the amount of radicalisation and extremism on the social media as well as increasing the amount of unknown in the public therefore creating more fear in the country and benefiting the terror and terrorists even more than it would with the media unrestricted thank you kids i have your name in just school please young man hello toby apriar clifton hospital many thanks i'll go back to this side of the room yeah in the middle yeah hello adam mackleroy from morris's high school now i agree with the proposition on the point that you know the media and their reporting can sometimes facilitate the racial hatred and in some ways exemplify it but i don't think this is going to be fixed by restricting facts i think this is going to be fixed more by removing the bias aspects of the media such as newspapers like the sun and the daily record and having more unbiased media outlets like the bbc which are trusted and regulated by government i think that is the solution not as the proposition i've put forward restricting the facts we have a response we're trying to do is make the system as unbiased as possible you said that we're going to restrict facts that's exactly what we're not restricting we're restricting everything else though all they've biased opinions thank you very much show of hands again young women at the back here yep breach hynny fel from saint mary's music school is it not possible that more media coverage would force terrorists into hiding making it more difficult to arrest them rather than easier for the public to identify them thank you very much and young women here please heather henderson ffalkirk high school i feel that it's still unclear as if you are going to criminalise victims for speaking to media outlets and from the proposition thank you very much young woman at the back harryt foreman robert gordon's college i would just like to address a point made by proposition which was the idea that it's media bias which leads to kind of racial hatred and then reprisal attacks and i actually feel that it's actually the opposite that if we restrict what our media can say what we get is half truths and scaremongering and that's far more dangerous than people kind of airing their views in an open and kind of more legitimate means rather than kind of all this kind of the conjecture stuff which i actually i feel will be far more dangerous many thanks and mania look from look mcfee from st morris's high school it seems clear that the opposition wish not to restrict the victims whilst the proposition wish to censor certain aspects of the incident such as the name of the terrorist group this would therefore mean that the victims shall not be limited and will be able to tell their story yet the terrorist shall not be named preventing one of their main motives surely this is a good thing thank you and i'll go to gentlemen behind you hi germie joan i'm from high school one of the things that the proposition was suggesting was to only profess the need to know details in the media now i think one of the good points of the opposition was the positive aspects that media coverage and full profession of the information available could have in the sense that the example given was with the boston bombings where by giving the identities of the of the suspects in fact they were able to be caught and reprimanded for what they did now i think if you limit it to need to know information then you kind of lose that positive aspect many thanks gentlemen here yeah murray marnach from brisk academy one thing that i've noticed and i'm sure everybody in this room has noticed at some point in the lives since 911 has happened islamophobia is a thing it is growing and growing and growing the news is projecting it as many have said a lot of terrorist attacks have not actually been by islam people right but the the media itself is projecting it as if it is so surely then by limiting what you can say on the news you're actually going to cause more problems because people are going to instantly assume it was islam because that theory is already there in a lot of the country's minds surely by rather than not allowing people in the country to know what's happened you tell them more you maybe not make it about race but you make sure that the country is aware that it is not just the small minority of a religion and this entire religion getting the blame that's all many thanks we've just got a couple of minutes left so i'll see another couple of speakers but remember that you get a chance later young woman uh meheck child read and feminine high school i think we'll all agree that terrorists commit acts in order to get a message across to the people mainly a message to strike fear into the public and the restriction of the media coverage will block these messages and there will no longer be any point in committing acts of terror and i know this won't completely stop terrorist attacks but it has the potential to stop many that are already happening thank you thank you very much uh young women in the middle uh Rachael Marriolannock grammar school um i was just like to point out that due to these restrictions uh there would obviously be less coverage of terrorist attacks in the media um that is the point and therefore they would have less impact and i'd like to suggest that this would in fact cause a surge in terrorism in order to counteract this making attacks more likely um putting innocent lives at risk in fact you know removing any point that the proposition may have had thank you thank you and young man behind yeah Fraser Taylor clifton all school um do you not think that because you are sort of you aren't focusing on the race in the in the news or whatever you're still um sort of isolating races and people still live in fear of those races and the opposition also said that they concentrated on the fact that heroes are like sort of born on the fact of the media covering the the terrorist attacks in detail do you not think that would still happen if it wasn't like in so much detail people would still do it because it's human nature to try and help okay thank you all very much for your contributions in this section we will be coming back to another open debate section so please keep your points for for then um i'm now going to ask rachel miller to reply on behalf of the opposition and rachel you have three minutes please so firstly i would like to highlight some issues that we have found with the propositions arguments tonight so firstly they have admitted to planning on restricting victims coverage and seem to feel that they have the supreme knowledge and the right to decide what is best for victims what gives the proposition this fight surely it is up to the victims to decide whether or not they want to go and talk to someone or if they want to share their experiences with the media and often a lot of victims may feel that they are having some kind of closure by sharing their experiences with the mainstream media or by the fact that they can raise awareness and they can't do that through social media to the same extent as they could with the more respected as you said media outlets um so we feel that it is not up to the proposition to decide what is best for victims and what victims can and cannot do in the same way that it is not up to them what is appropriate for the public to hear and see and what is appropriate for the public to know we feel that the general public should have the right to choose what they know so if like i said corporations at the bbc are companies so if people are unhappy with what they hear in the media they can complain and that will change to set people under this motion people will not have the right to decide whether or not they want to hear more about terrorism and i suspect that given the impact of terrorism on society people would want to see as much of terrorism as they could and have as much information as possible furthermore um when you restrict coverage there is no accountability so like i said we can currently complain if we feel that coverage has been inappropriate but when it's censored we don't know what has happened and that we haven't seen which i also think would create more fear um in contrast with what the proposition have said indeed they have talked a lot about how the media causes fear does it they haven't actually explained how the media causes fear only asserted that it does i would suggest that it's because it doesn't create fear indeed as we stated it leads to the coverage of the positive stories of humanity the charities the rallies of support the acts of heroic the heroic acts of the public this is what we see and it's the media doesn't really focus on the act as much as the people so i think that creates less fear than people imagining what may or may not have happened furthermore they talked about um how the media leads to radicalisation firstly i would suggest that there are many other social factors which lead to radicalisation and the media is simply an easy target however if we are to assume that the media is the fundamental cause which i would dispute i think that we would all agree that social media is the cause of radicalisation not the bbc furthermore um they spoke of how the media lead to racism i think this is naive and untrue frankly if your racist you're going to be racist with or without media it's due to an individual's own ignorance and inadequacies if they're going to have racist views i think that we should tackle racism in this country but i don't think the media is to be blamed and i don't think the proposition have actually said how it does cause racism so for all of the reasons highlighted tonight i would urge you to support the opposition thank you many thanks Rachel can i now invite Richard Montgomery to reply for the proposition three minutes please Richard thank you once again ladies and gentlemen before this discussion draws to a close i must remind you of what the true concerns have been this evening yes this debate has been about censorship and media coverage yes it has to a certain extent been about freedom of speech but at the heart of it it goes much deeper than that this is about national security this is about the vulnerable and marginalised and quite literally about life and death now the word victims has been used quite a lot this evening but what i want to ask just now is who are the victims well the victims are the people who have been involved in these horrific events but the victims are also you and i the victims are the vulnerable people in this society the people who in the aftermath and this aftermath which the opposition has been so concerned about who will then suffer as a result of irresponsible media coverage also in this debate there seems to be a sort of opposition between prevention and cure as the proposition we are far more interested in preventing these acts from occurring in the first place which is why we've talked about the oxygen of publicity which the mainstream media provides for these terrorists the opposition has been very concerned about the aftermath of the events and allowing victims to express themselves and saying that we as proposition are restricting their freedom of speech we are not we are we wish to keep our people safe the vulnerable the marginalised you and i as well as the people involved in these horrific events we do not want to restrict democracy and remember democracy is a means not an ends democracy democracy is the system our government chooses to keep us safe remember the primary role of our government is to keep us safe that's what anna reminded us at the beginning of this debate and it's what i want to reinforce as we close tonight if we wish to cultivate that safer environment we must prune back the tangled mess that we have allowed the media's coverage of the atrocities to become it's the fact that it is so uncontrolled that is what is creating fear we as vulnerable people and we are all vulnerable are not responsible enough to choose what to be influenced by it's on the bbc therefore it frightens us as we have shown our proposed restrictions will reduce the risk of terrorism itself that's where our prevention idea comes in as well as allowing our nation to achieve greater equality and operate as a fairer society and that is curing us all of great evils in our own country ladies and gentlemen thank you very much for your attention this evening good night thank you very much to both teams and to those who contributed from the floor to the debate we've heard some really interesting contributions and i hope that you all enjoyed participating here in the scottish parliament this evening there's going to be a short break before i announce that can i also just take time to thank willy renny msp and roderick cambell msp who've also taken time out of their busy schedules to come and join us for the debate this evening so i think we're grateful to them for joining us too thank you both thank you very much during the break could you please speak to an event assistant if you wish to make use of this time to use the facilities and could i ask the speakers from st mary's music school and lannock grammar to move your seats please into the row behind and we will then welcome back madras college and presswick academy for the second debate can i ask everyone to be seated again to commence promptly at seven fifty one thank you very much 10 minute break right thank you all heard a hush descending on the assembled crowd there that's good welcome back everyone so before we start the second debate of the evening i want to remind everyone of the motion again this house would restrict media coverage of terrorist attacks and we will start the second debate by calling on jamie mcloud from madras college to open this debate as the first proposition speaker jamie six minutes please well thank you very much madam president officer and the motion tonight is this house would restrict media coverage of terrorist attacks and we tonight are arguing for the complete prohibition of private media sources in the UK from having any coverage of any kind of any terrorist attack on the western world now i'd like to go through this motion word by word and put my definition on each because i think it's really important for this debate that there are no gray areas restrict as i've said the complete prohibition of private media sources by media coverage we're talking about apps newspapers websites the private media's twitter and facebook accounts will also be prohibited from reporting now the only media outlet with the ability to report will the bbc and i have two very simple reasons for that firstly they're not motivated by profit they're required by its charter by law to provide a higher quality report as they can and secondly unlike newspapers such as the times and guardian with their bias political agenda and very aggressive sales policy the bbc espouses neutrality and fairness thereby making it the most transparent source of information available to the public now let me be clear here no thank you a very a profit ridden private press can never aspire to these ideals of a publicly owned company instead feeding off a burgeoning appetite for the dramatic the elaborate the hyperbolic the hype and exaggeration which satisfies not the hunger for truth but the appetite for terror and tonight i'm going to be focusing on why it's beneficial for the country i'll take in a second why it's beneficial for the country following the attack of terror that the bbc are reporting and how in doing so we enhance the information available to the public David surely sometimes it can be good for a bit of an extreme response to terrorism because it shows the people how bad the situation is and how much needs to be done to tackle it okay let me be absolutely clear here we're not saying that we should filter out any passioned any any angered responses to terrorism what we're saying is the way in which it's doing it now where we have it in private media where the debate that takes place is often by the way very it's not credible at all because the facts are undermined because the newspapers want to exploit the other side for example the times their agenda is to attack the other side that would be the left and the left the guardian their aim is to attack the other side that's the right so what i want to say to you there is the debate that you talk about isn't credible at all because what it is are the facts being undermined and unfortunately confusing the public as a result now i'm going to focus on the issues no thank you David secondly i'll be addressing the issues of dramatisation in private media which bridges you and in my case as he goes on to more closely examine radicalisation and where exactly it stems from now before i move on to my substantive case tonight um starting off so let me first suggest to you directly addressed out that the two main criticism is what we're proposing tonight and how we on-side proposition win on each point and we're going to hear a lot from the other side of the chamber about how our motion limits the free press but i have one very simple response point in response to this first a question the very existence of a free press when we have the sun read mostly by the lower economic groups and times read mostly by the higher economic groups owned by one in the same man i've not even mentioned sky again owned by murdoch who has a very dangerous amount of influence over almost every demographic in our society but let's say for a second that there is a free press and i make no bones about this we are happy and proud to stand up tonight and say we're going to limit it because it is in the national interest to do so and i go on to prove that in my case tonight further we might also get this idea that we are limiting information to the public and i've responded to this in a point of information and this brings me on to my first point tonight ladies and gentlemen and that's a accessibility of information to the public let me tell you that it is they on that side of the chamber who are limiting information as under the status quo where we have hundreds of headlines reporting what feels like all day every day using very confusing and conflicting headlines and if you take that fact and you couple it with the dramatisation of the facts that to make sales and don't let's forget that that's what private media aims to do make sales and they make those sales by tapping into the paranoia that exists in our country and we are a very paranoid country for example in 2012 the london underground twitter feed was hacked and the hackers said that they'd found a bomb on one of the cars now of course very quickly that the hackers were proven completely wrong the police came out and said that that was completely false but still as a result london underground was boycotted for a period of two weeks because we're a very paranoid nation and these private media companies they know that they tap into that that's how they make their sales and let's be frank here when we create that hype that exaggeration that panic that takes place when we have those perpetuating headlines the terrorists they don't care how many people die they care about the response that hype that's created that terror that we get as a result and every single time we see that headline it's a victory for them we tonight no thank you david we tonight under this motion are enhancing the information we're centralising the necessary info streamlining it to a credible concise source meaning that the public they don't have to sift through every headline the information is available to them for them secondly i'll be focusing on the dramatisation that takes place in private media private media is motivated by profit they're there to sell a story and all good stuff i'll take you in a second and all good stories need compelling characters david far away no minute okay thank you i'll let you in if you want all right we say that about private media wanting viewers and that's how it's bad that we need to restrict them but in this day and age that is some people even debating whether the bbc should get the license fee so they need to justify that by getting viewers surely the bbc has just as much an interest in creating panic to get viewers as does the private media regardless of what it's charter says yeah thank you for your point there what i would say is you're talking about your license fee you're talking about funding to the bbc the very sector of the bbc that is safeguarded is the news and the reporting if any cuts were to be made that would come in the entertainment sector okay and the bbc is safeguarded in its reporting and i'm going to go on now to talk about the dramatisation they're there to sell a story that's a fact they talk about and all good stories need compelling characters media exaggeration leads to radicalisation because they make characters out of terrorists characters that are larger than life more menacing more iconic than they would otherwise be and this can be seen in the media coverage of Muhammad and Wazie chances are you don't know him you know him as jihadi john and that's exactly what i'm talking about the media painting a picture for profit not telling you the facts telling you what they want you to hear to make a story to make a sale hype exaggeration and panic are the sales model for private media that creates a devastating impact on our society and gives a victory to the terrorists our motion enhances information and creates a stronger more stable response to terrorism beg to propose thank you very much thank you very much jamey could i now invite david cameron from press week academy to respond as the first opposition speaker david six minutes please good evening ladies and gentlemen deputy president officer esteemed judges for decades now and particularly since its November 11 trade centre bombings reports of terror or the risk of terror have been ubiquitous in global mass media we would define this motion as attempting to severely restrict the reporting of terrorist attacks or their perpetrators by any reasonable means including censoring television print media the internet and radio while we agree with the supporters of the motion that the terrorism portrayed in the media is unspeakably violent and inhumane and that the current portrayal of terrorism in the media leaves much to be desired we simply do not agree with their premise that a severe restriction on reporting terrorist attacks would yield any benefit i'll put forward our case for allowing media reporting of such events my colleague here will explain why restricting such reporting will not have the effects of supporters of the motion hope for we believe it to be naive immoral and impractical to adopt a head in the sand approach to this issue hoping that simply ignoring the atrocities committed by the terrorists will make them give up and go home terrorism was first recorded in roman occupied judea in first century bc and has been used as a tactic to achieve one's aims since well before the dawn of mass media so the media can't be blamed for its existence ignoring the terrorists will instead mean that knowledge no thank you all the atrocities will be far less available to the wider world stifling international outrage that sparks movements to bring back our girls campaign which led to 200 girls in Nigeria being released safely such movements would not exist without the exposure media attention brings yes that's not true the bring back our girls campaign took off on twitter and on facebook both of which would be happening under our motion well as you said your restriction does include social media including twitter and facebook this led to over 200 girls being released safely and this wouldn't happen without the exposure media attention brings one could even argue that an increase in the right kind of exposure of terrorism could lead to fewer recruits for terrorist organisations western recruits for isis have had a far more sheltered life than the militants so showing the reality of the situation on the ground would perhaps discourage them from giving up their comfortable lifestyle here repression even if it is only imagined bridge resentment so censoring the media more could lead to more young muslims feeling as if the west is against them so giving isis more recruits again reporting of terrorist attacks also pressurises governments that have not taken the necessary precautions to protect the citizens from terrorism while we agree that the media has been far too alarmist or even sensationalist in the coverage of these attacks and that they don't stress the underlying personal and political complexities of the situations it's still better than having the public live in a bubble of ignorance completely unaware of these atrocities yes i like to say we're aware of these atrocities because what we're doing is enhancing information currently your proponents of this very conflicting and confusing way of putting it about we say let's streamline it concise consource to a credible source like the bbc well your full proposition is the censorship of the media you didn't say anything about the streamline we want to change the way it's talked about not necessarily totally sensing it the wider public knowledge of the holocaust led to strong support for multilateral organisations such as the european court of human rights the united nations and the european union that are dedicated to defending peace and human rights unlike the supporters of the motion we believe that the public have a right to be informed it's simply part of the onward march of history that people know more about events happening halfway across the globe in any attempt to stop this is futile anyone who wish to find out about these events will do so regardless of our efforts to stop them but they would get their information through the prism of extremist underground websites and asian provocateurs acting on social media downplaying the horror of these attacks and spreading their insidious message of hate unchalloned and unchecked by a low and perfect moderate mainstream media it's also important to consider the long-term implications of these restrictions presumably individual governments or a un agency would be responsible for implementing these restrictions raising all sorts of issues around democratic accountability and censorship who decides what is classed as terrorism in this sense power corrupts and regardless of any potential safeguards in place the power to censor the entire world's media would lead to abuses as we've already seen on a on a lesser scale across the globe with authoritarian governments thwarting legitimate political expression in the name of stopping the terrorists the chinese government has already used this excuse to oppress the muslim minority in their country when for example in 2009 hundreds of muslims were shot dead in their capital as an excuse for stopping terrorism imagine what any individual who's just as unscrupulous could do with even more power this is slippery slope ladies and gentlemen they could lead to the orwellian nightmare of mass censorship stopping any one institution from having such power will help maintain our cherished liberal democracy stopping the enemy going from being extremists willing to use violence to being our own dictatorial governments as reasoning itself to oppose this motion along with everything else i have mentioned ladies and gentlemen thank you for listening thank you very much david can i now invite you in red path second proposition speaker to give us his views please you in six minutes ladies gentlemen presiding officer there are few things more dangerous to civil society than terrorist attacks but one of them one of the most heartbreaking is the stream of vulnerable young people being lured away from this country to arwark in syria by islamic state and so it is not just for our own safety that we must try and prevent radicalisation but for their safety and their futures too hype exaggeration and panic are the private media sales model and so we cannot expect them to act responsibly when it comes to reporting terrorism my partner has already shown several ways in which the hype and exaggeration of terrorism damages our country and aids terrorists now i will show how it creates two extremist groups in our country firstly radical islam and secondly anti islamic radicals first though summer bottle so throughout the opposition speaker's speech we had this idea that we were somehow limiting information restricting it to the point that people simply wouldn't know about terrorist atrocities one minute but as my partner has explained we are um streamlining this information to make it clear and concise we're removing it from the hands of people like rupert murdoch and newspapers only seek to confirm their readerships bias they're there to they push towards an extreme because they know that is what sells papers um so by by bringing it into the hands of the bb of the bbc which is renowned throughout the world as being independent fair and neutral on issues we create we make it clear and streamlined and easier for people to grasp comprehend and understand the issue of terrorism clearly no thank you so to that first group that's the hype exaggeration of terrorism creates radical islam in his second point my partner described how the private media coverage grants terrorists a perverse kind of celebrity it is this sense of fame and reward that leads to radicalisation imagine a young muslin at risk of being radicalised they are unsure of the society in which they live and and dissatisfied with the future that the inner city has to offer them they are stranded with a conflicted identity separated from their grandparents origins but not entirely at ease in a society which often sees them as outsiders and then all around them on every newspaper on every news channel they see a strong identity just waiting for them black flags a uniform jihadi john and all to those stranded and identity such as this can prove very alluring yes please you mentioned that seeing these things in the media helps these young people want to join them but the government's own task force called that I think it was prevent they did that they worked out that the main reasons people join these organisations are like you said social exclusion and isolation but they get that information about ISIS mainly from people on social media so you would have to censor that to you know for your motion to work not simply the mainstream press as you said the reporting of terrorism is ubiquitous in our society and we see that as the catalyst as the first step towards this radical radicalisation so it's this perverse kind of celebrity and it comes entirely from the perceived reaction to terrorist attacks the reaction that is seen on the news in newspapers and is taken to be society's reaction if that perceived reaction is panic then the terrorists have a victory and who doesn't want to be on the winning side private media reports compete with each other to make us revile jihadi john and yet they make those vulnerable to radicalisation revere him they allow him to be them to be lured to a life of terrorism in the desert in iraq and syria so by removing private media hysteria and exaggeration we can stop this process we can save these vulnerable young people so that's that second group that private media hyping exaggeration creates anti islamic radicals private media reports and terrorism are there to provoke a heightened emotional response because that is what sells they are there to outdo each other in emphasising the barbarity of the terrorist and the horror of the attack because subtlety and nuance don't outsell striking headlines but is it precisely at times such as after a terrorist attack that sobriety and reason are needed most not rash decisions driven by emotion no thank you a reason examination of the evidence would lead anyone to believe that terrorists do not represent the vast majority of muslims and that burning down a mosque is no way to combat extremism yet the emotional response of a significant uninformed section in british society is violent anger in the heat of communal rage blaming outsiders becomes natural and burning down a mosque can seem a civic duty by creating a heightened emotional response the media drives and enables this violence this can be seen clearly in the events following the murder of lee rugby on the streets of london there was a graphic video of one of the killers immediately after the attack his hands bloodied justifying what he had just done and it was shown by every major broadcast it was put on every front page the next day it was turned into a spectacle and what did this achieve 200 attacks on muslims in the following days and 10 attacks on mosques in essics a man ran into a mosque brandishing two knives through a gas canister into the congregation in grimsby petrol bombs were thrown into the into a mosque and in willich where the attack took place an islamic cultural centre was burned to the ground and there on the charge ruins newly spray painted with three letters edl ladies and gentlemen that centre was used by school children can you imagine the feelings of injustice of vulnerability and of incomprehension the attack created in there radical islam and anti islam feed off each other and the private media coverage and hysteria feeds them both because they are those are exactly the feelings in which radicalisation thrives vulnerability injustice and incomprehension tonight my partner and i have shown that private media with its lust for sales it's a grandising and dramatising of terrorism and its exploitation of our paranoid mindset does its society extreme damage our motion tonight is about responsibility to society and responsibility to the vulnerable we must not fail to act upon that thank you many thanks you and can i now ask david layered second opposition speaker to address us david six minutes please mr chair esteemed judge excuse me uh deputy for bit presiding officer esteemed judges ladies and gentlemen my colleague has already discussed the positive case for media freedom and i'll be discussing how enacting the restrictions that the supporters of the motion propose would be futile but firstly let me take issue with some of the uh the points made by the speakers for the motion they've said that through their motion that the public would still get as much information it would just be streamlined through better sources but the simple fact does well it is admirable to think hope that it would be streamlined the fact does that you can only streamline so much there will be less information coming through less channels so people will have less knowledge also they mentioned about the reasons that young musulans can be radicalised saying that this is often because of reporting in the media but the fact does that it has been proven as i mentioned in my point of information one minute that musulans are radicalised because yes pick up on something he said less sources and the like less physical amount of information does not equate to less knowledge the greater clarity of the information that our motion would provide would lead to greater understanding of the issues surrounding terrorism and therefore greater knowledge in the in the british population i understand the point you're trying to make but the point is is that if there are a few there will be less information circulating and circulating and secondly just because you put it on the bbc doesn't mean that everybody's going to watch it the fact does these people that read the sun or whatever pay instead of and maybe don't watch the news they're not going to suddenly start watching the news simply because coverage of terrorism isn't newspapers that's not why people read it anyway back to my point musulans aren't radical young musulans aren't radicalised because of what they see in the media it's social exclusion and isolation a government task force found this also to do with with social class and the main way that these people are contacted is through almost sleep ourselves on social media telling them to come and join ices or to carry out this attack that's what needs to be tackled it needs to be a battle for hearts and minds not just a simplistic measure yes we are in second going to stand here and claim that radicalisation is caused exactly just by by the private media reporting what we're saying quite clearly is that it's the first domino in that trail and if you can tackle that first domino you have a much better footing in tackling radicalisation as a whole well again i don't understand the point i'm trying to make but the other thing that we're arguing one of our main points is it it's about changing the way that terrorism is discussed in the media now that doesn't mean changing the reporting of terrorism it's changing how it's discussed simply censoring things doesn't achieve that oh so you also mentioned how this no thank you uh can mean that muslims you know people are racist towards them in our society because of the coverage of terrorism but surely i mean it's obvious the main reason for that is because of whether you agree with it or not they've been very very fast changes in our society with mass immigration and and multi multiculturalism that's what's making people fear muslims they've done it for the all of time people fear immigrants they fear the irish in scotland at one point now they're integrated it's not the media it's simply human nature but now on to more of my own points many argue that media coverage of terrorism creates a public forum for those carrying out the attacks and the restricting this will make the perpetrator stardom fade into obscurity but we've seen already the impotence of well-meaning yet misguided action of severely restricting the coverage of terrorism jerry adam's leader of shin ffain the politic wing the ira his voice wasn't allowed to be shown on television or radio but this led to voice actors simply reading out what he'd said this the absurdity of this arbitrary restriction simply gave the ira more publicity allowing them to portray themselves as oppressed freedom fighters the terrorists that we have today would be able to do the same thing they long for martyrdom of any sort let's not do things their way and give them what they want it's also been proclaimed by many that since the object of terrorism uh yeah but your um the private media gives them exactly what they want they put these images the image of jahadi john beheading a terrorist outfit that's exactly what the terrorists want well again that's the issue of how it's talked about not how you know not the fact that they showed jahadi john or the terrorism it's the way they talk about it and simply censoring it doesn't help that also uh proclaim that the object of terrorism is to create fear that shown attacks will terrify the public into submission and caving into the demands but the one thing that unites every fear is the universal human phobia the fear of the unknown the censorship proposed by the supporters of the motion would lead to less understanding exactly the opposite of what we need for a calm well informed public the public's mistrust and desire for restricting coverage should be directed at right media moguls and right-wing commentators that sensationalise terrorism and really craft the news agenda not the channel's reporting of terrorism it's the discussion of terrorism that is the issue this is another point the reasoning that media coverage and directly leads to more terrorist attacks and more recruits simply does not hold true the countries that have the most terrorism and those like Iraq Afghanistan and Nigeria that have been destabilised by foreign invasion occupation and colonisation incidentally they also have a far more restricted press than we in the west do if the supporters of the motion really wanted to lower the number of terrorist attacks worldwide rather than focusing on our tiny and frankly rather unaffected corner of the globe they would support measures to stabilise these nations not a reaction in a sticking plaster solution there's also an argument that too much public pressure on the government can be a bad thing and that it leads with governments to negotiating with terrorists and caving into the demands this isn't fully true it can lead governments to negotiate with terrorists but surely that can be a bad a good thing we should in the words of president kennedy never negotiate out of fear but never fear to negotiate if increased public exposure means that even a few innocents get the chance to survive their ordeals at the hands of terrorists and i believe that that is reason enough to support to oppose sorry this motion thank you very much thank you david and thanks to all of the speakers in this part of the tournament again of course we've had some very interesting views in the debate and i'm going to open up the debate to the floor and invite as many people as possible to participate as before it'll be for 15 minutes and if you can raise points in relation to the debate please and if you want to speak raise your hand if selected wait for the red light to come on please stand if you can tell the chamber your name and your school please try and remember that's important and short contributions teams can choose to answer the points if they wish but the performance is not judged against the response or teams can simply concentrate on constructing their reply speeches which is marked so can we start the clock for 15 minutes please young man in the middle here whose hand I saw go up first Calomphrey burn Falkirk high the proposition said there they would like to restrict coverage of terrorist attacks to one organisation bbc will surely in a liberal country such as britain the respects the fundamental human rights of freedom of speech the government has no place deciding who can and cannot report on important events such as terrorist attacks thank you it was actually the young man behind I would hope that those who have already had a chance to maybe not put their hand up again until the end to see if we have some time I'll try and give yep yourself Anthony Welsh Robert Gordon's college the proposition this evening has given us two choices two centralised extremes to juxtaposition they said we can have commercial centralisation or state centralisation of the media now I put this question to them would they rather have the what I can see to be greedy but ultimately fickle ever-evolving and comedian like commercial media that is designed to make money and not establish and present a political position or would they rather have state manipulation targeted in order to spread fear in order to to fit an agenda in order to to meet the needs of a government and establish public support and fear as they so wish thank you very much please put your hand up if you've not contributed in the earlier open debate if we have time I'll try and take others at the end young man in the middle kaisiwch presswick academy just for the the supporters your proposal would severely curtail free speech and the freedom of press now surely this brings us closer to the kind of society that these extremists would want so why not just lay down the welcome map for isis and stop even pretending to oppose them thank you thank you very much right at the back please yep sorry i'll call you next go ahead I'd like to address a question to the opposition and it was the first speaker who said that meet the we want to say that the media discourages terrorists by showing the reality of isis and show the what the front lines are really like and discourage people from leaving their comfortable western lives but I'd say this is already the reality we already already have the free information and what we're seeing now is every few weeks or so young people vulnerable people leaving their comfortable western lives to go and join isis on the front lines but we heard from the second proposition speaker that what the media is doing is creating a picture an identity for these vulnerable people to conform to well I say why don't we restrict this this identity why don't we restrict this glamourization of terrorism in the news to then create a more fact driven and ultimately more realistic picture of what's really going on the front line and ultimately stop the corruption of our vulnerable young people in society thank you to have your name in skill please jake walker madras college many thanks and young man in the second last show Alexander mcdonald saint marriage music school well earlier on the opposition had said about social media like facebook and twitter saying that how it spreads it's harder to control how the news spreads about terrorist attacks well what you're saying is that how does it get out there in the first place it must be some high as some very important news businesses like including the bbc cnn and many others newspapers which include the news out there in the first place as soon as it happens how are you supposed to do you're supposed to restrict what they put out there so that it spreads very very slowly by only by people who had seen the actual event can can spread it out there on social media thank you many thanks young man at the back here please thank you to have the microphone I think different sources give different viewpoints on events and create a more engaged and informed public and there's no real way around this if you streamline anything you really you have to remove something and you can't preserve the sort of information and knowledge rich atmosphere that we are lucky to have in britain if there's only one source indeed the bbc originally was sold to the government as a way of putting propaganda out to the general public there is no way of ensuring that the the bbc will remain in the interests of the public rather than the interests of the government could have your name in school please Lawrence Brown madras college many thanks and just along from you think someone else was leaping to their feet thank you Miles McClure from madras college the opposition were saying how if we were streamlining as the proposition said what they were giving out to the public then we would be giving less information and meaning that the public knows less and has less to deal with however this is not true because if we were streamlining what the people hear then we would be cutting out what crazy people say and their opinions and leaving it up to the public to to side for themselves and discuss among themselves the correct way of looking at it thank you very much yes young women in the middle here hazel slowly st morris high school the opposition first speaker said that to propose this motion would be to hope that ignoring terrorists in the media would to directly quote the speaker make them give up and go home and this is something which the first opposition speaker believes be unsuccessful however terrorists thrive off of this media attention therefore to ignore them in the media could lead to decreasing the attacks many thanks anyone at this side who hasn't spoken in the previous debate young woman here hi Alice Jasper's Robert Gordon's college surely the propositions idea of using a neutral informed platform as a plan to report terrorist attacks as opposed to having an assortment of biased and limited sources forcing their own agenda is going to allow the public to form their own opinions as much as is possible in the United Kingdom thank you very much and i'm looking in the middle you haven't asked a question before oh on you go um ilan and in lannock grammar school um how are you sure that shortening the public's information would reduce terrorism wouldn't it just make the terrorists do more horrible things to get more publicity and stand out thank you very much and right at the back please shavon melgian madras college the opposition touched on the fear derived from the unknown in regards to terrorism wouldn't you agree that the majority of fear leading to discrimination today is enhanced if not created by bias or uncredible sources neither of which category the bbc falls into therefore by limiting the public source of information to a level trusted media outlet surely we'll have the general public more informed of the solid credible facts and clarity thereof reducing fear and discrimination derived from the source of the proposition wish to censor thanks thank you very much and yes no man here addin mcgursant lorysus high school surely by streaming through one reliable source ie the bbc you would get the facts across the actual matter rather than exaggerated lies through you know the private media social media so you'll still get media coverage of terrorism but it'll be quite unbiased and sorry i'm not untruthful truthful thank you looking in the middle again young woman um son of a lawyer from lannock grammar and i would just like to point out that if you want like the bbc did he go about every single aspect of terrorism news um can they actually tackle everything all like i understand that they are a wide range of like reporters and journalists but they would have a lot of responsibility and nevertheless they might not be able to cover every aspect that the viewers the people want and even in schools we use topics such as terrorism like 9 11 we use them to gain our own information to study and to comprehend as well so we can enhance our knowledge as well but if you just like put a lid on like just for the bbc then viewers will be stopped as well so it's kind of putting a limit to what people say what people think thank you very much and i'll open it up again to those who have had the opportunity previously young man at the back who moved to seat we were told to i promise ladies and gentlemen the proposition of forgetting that many people have in fact lost faith in the bbc with sex abuse scandals and cover-ups of prominent employees and accusations from across the political spectrum of political bias therefore it seems absolutely laughable that we should give an organisation with such a shaky record on press coverage and monopoly on news the proposition is genuinely proposing an orwellian nightmare just remind us of your name in school again i keep i forgot that last time as well um daniel craig robert godin's college should have remembered that anyone else young man in the middle jonathan winston press academy to the opposition the first duty of any government is to defend its citizens from harm surely this includes the emotional harm that the fetish of these attacks can cause thank you very much uh yes young man shortwood lannard grammar pupil the first proposition speaker talked about the hackers lying about the hackers lying on social media that there was a bomb on a carriage of an underground train but what if this was true social media would have saved many lives and this lie was not social media's fault it was actually the hackers fault who promoted the fear thank you thank you very much uh yeah gentlemen well gentlemen behind you yep jason woods clifton hall school so like the the proposition mentioned that many of the current put newspapers and stuff are profit driven but i think we're often misjudging the agendas because people aren't only after profit they have political agendas and if you shut down their outlet we're not we're going to take to social media or other forms to adapt and build with any means necessary they'll further their political agenda so the problem's not going to go away thank you i'm just going to ask again for anyone who's not had an opportunity because we've only a few minutes left yep young man andrew peck from press academy the freedom of speech aspect has been mentioned a couple times as well as in the previous debate but surely the reduction of the number of media sources reduces the the the amount of information that you can form proper opinions which could be used on further debates on counterterrorism measures thank you anyone else who's not had an opportunity yep young woman in the middle here um Anna Kirkwood on fairly high school if we accept that the main aims of terrorists are to get a response and to create fear then surely this proposition will be seen as terrorists by as a fear as a fearful response and makes them think that what they are doing is working and therefore encourage them to continue to commit atrocities thank you andy young woman next to you yep surely the pressure on the bbc to report on every detail and make the public's desire for knowledge would reduce their ability to report on other aspects of news and we'll turn them into like a round-the-clock terror channel okay to have your name in school please lead suede i'm firm in high school many thanks uh yep young man um ken fair brother same age me in school um one of the points that the abstention has been making is free speech and i think that rather than letting the terrorists show us our views we should be letting the minorities who have the same social problems but don't have the same radical ideas to express their views on social media okay thanks another show of hands yep girl at the back please um we have to think about the effect of terrorism on young children surely if we limit media coverage children will not grow up seeing horrific images of terrorism when they turn on the tv or see newspaper lying around sorry your name in school elmarcom madras college thank you andy young woman in front of you who thought it was her and uh katie grave from madras college and the opposition said that no restrictions would lead to a camp informed person but surely this is the opposite of what would happen too much information would make people paranoid and make discrimination more frequent thank you just a couple more of anyone who hasn't had an opportunity young man and create my colleague lana grammar school i just want to say that if the bbc is the respected neutral form of media that the proposition portrayed to be then how come the media coverage already delivered isn't the streamlined coverage that you suggested thank you and someone who's not had a chance okay right at the back hi i'm isabel grieve from madras college and i think that having less media coverage would prevent the manipulation of terrorist attacks stories if a member of the public came forward with an account of a terrorist attack the media might manipulate and change the story to their benefit sure if there were no limited media coverage there would certainly be rumors but people would know that these are rumors if a story is in a well-known newspaper whoever manipulated the story is we would believe it this surely causes more fear and is far more dangerous thank you last contribution from someone who's not had an opportunity to speak at all this evening not okay hands up those who have young man in the middle mary marna preska callymigan the bbc has been given a lot of abuse over this debate and i'm about to give it a little bit more the whole point that you've said yourself you you see the bbc as a reputable source i'm sorry but in this room especially the referendum how much did the bbc slant towards one side let's be honest come on i'm interested because i'm sure we all noticed that the bbc are very royalist are very unionist so you you can't really put any one form of media to say no this is the this is the media we will use we'll streamline this this will be great la di da di da the big problem you're going to have is all these all the different forms of media together can make a better overall grasp of a situation you can't just say no we're going with this one this is what we want to do it's been around for a long time they pick what they want to say same as any media by giving all the media the equal right to be held to be read to be seen people can come to their own views they can streamline themselves were not idiots thank you thank you very much and thank you to everyone who's contributed for your fantastic contributions this evening i'm now going to ask david layered to reply on behalf of the opposition david you have three minutes please it was once said those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither that in essence sums up our opposition to this motion what the supporters of the motion have failed to articulate throughout this evening's proceedings is how any concessions made any sacrifices of our freedoms endured or any erosion of the independence of our media will somehow make us safer from terrorism what they're suggesting would mean that only the state they dress up as the bbc is being this perfect unbiased institution and while it may be better than other media platforms the fact is is it is a government controlled media channel you would put the access to all information about this in the hands of the government now that's starting to sound more and more like 1984 to me along with the way that you've euphemistically used streamline to say give people less information that is quite mind boggling actually to say that giving less people information and knowledge is streamlining it but this needs a response of censorship and authoritarianism is exactly what the terrorists want it will mean our citizens will have an ignorance fears most fertile breeding ground the stereotyping of minorities as terrorists will not simply disappear but will be exacerbated as the draconian response to this threat makes the populace disproportionately fearful and paranoid just what the supporters of the motion say they want to stop the public outrage that is so often brought justice to the victims of such attacks will be replaced by a bleak silence as the people hear only whispers of the horror that exists outside of our little corner of peace prosperity and proper justice instead we've seen how the supporters of the motion propose a simplistic solution to a problem that goes back to a time long before television and radio we've seen how the real issue is not the showing of an execution here or a bombing here but rather the way that the narrative of terrorism is framed by various people and we don't agree that putting this into the hands of one institution no matter how revered it is by us and by the people and to patronise the people of this country by saying that they can't be trusted with knowledge because they might use it to stigmatise others it's patronising by telling the people that terrorism can be stopped or at least combated by the proposal they give false hope and there can be no true despair without hope this motion will inflict even more heartbreaking misery on the public after attacks as their hopes that maybe possibly fewer people would take part in and carry out these attacks because of their motion doesn't happen and closing ladies and gentlemen this debate boils down to one existential issue that's been with us since the dawn of complex societies the conflict between our perceived collective security and individual liberty unlike the supporters of the motion we believe that liberty is never a bad thing and there can never be too much of it join us in opposing the motion unless you're prepared for your rights your freedoms and your liberty to be taken away join us in opposing this motion and the spirit of Patrick Henry one of the founding fathers of the united states of america when he cried out give me liberty or give me death thank you very much david and can i now invite jamie to reply for the proposition three minutes please well thank you very much again um presently officer this debate tonight is centralised around freedoms the freedom to debate the freedom of expression the freedom of the press the availability of information and tonight my my summation is focusing on why we on this side of the house champion each and every single freedom that he mentioned across on that side of the house let me firstly address the freedom of information okay we enhance it we make information a lot more easily accessible for members of the public okay let's take the scenario that we've got right now the status quo what happens you have hundreds of confusing and conflicting headlines put about by the agenda that is politically aggressive and is motivated by sales that's not the kind of information i want to see in this country that's not the kind of information i want people to receive about terrorist attacks i want the kind of information that is credible that actually informs people and you and mentioned in a poi he said physical information tangible information does not equate to knowledge and that couldn't be more true we didn't really get a response from david and it still stands because just because you have loads of bits of paper that doesn't mean the public going to be better informed it doesn't mean they're going to better understand the real issues but let me tell you how they're going to understand the real issues and the bbc did get a lot of criticism tonight but let's not forget people here the bbc is the most neutral and the fairest source of information in the world it is you can't if you look at the other sources the times come on that's not fair that's not biased it's politically aggressive it's motivated by sales the bbc is the most neutral and the fairest in the world and i'm happy to stand here tonight and i make no bones about this to defend that because it is we enhance information we put it into a credible source and i'll take that and i'll defend it for the rest of this night and that's why we went on that point because we didn't get a response from you and we enhance that information and the second point i want to talk about is freedom of debate you know let's think about the debate that takes place right now the debate in private media where the facts are exploited and undermined to suit the agenda of whoever is on the other side whether it would be the times they're going to undermine the facts they're going to exploit the facts because they want to take a slant against labour just like the guardian they'll undermine the facts they'll exploit exploit the main point to undermine the other side because that's the state of the debate in our country right now don't be under the solution that we're completely free with our liberties that the debate is strong and powerful it's not it's influenced it's influenced by the agenda of one man that's rippert murdoch he has a dangerous amount of influence over every demographic in this society we want to pull that influence away from him and put it back in the public's hand and make sure that that debate is enhanced and is the best form that it can be and i want to talk to you a little bit about and we got this and i want to address directly the point that david Cameron made and that's the idea of how do you stop terrorist attacks how do you stop that happening will i say this well we start by stopping that first domino in the radicalisation trail we say let's stop people being manipulated by the propaganda that's being put about by the times we're doing islamic states work for them because you and said earlier who doesn't want to be on the winning side and when you've got that panic that exaggeration and that despair that's going about society you want to be on that winning side and that's why we've got a trail of young people going off to iraq in Syria so we stop terrorist attacks from happening by tackling the people that are perpetrating them now ladies and gentlemen we champion the freedoms freedom of debate freedom of speech freedom of expression because we put it in a stable environment where people can actually debate and we don't have the influence of one man at the top beg to propose thank you very much thank you very much jamey and thanks to everyone for your contributions to the debate it's been really interesting and i'm sure we could have continued to carry on debating for many more hours i must say that when i first spoke in the scotish parliament way back in nine to nine my legs were like jelly and i'm sure my voice was the same and we have heard no such nerves from any of the young people who've addressed us this evening so well done to everyone can i now ask the judges to adjourn and decide who's going to win this year's debating tournament and i would also like to remind them that they have until probably give you until 9 20 because we're running slightly late to reach your decision thank you very much could i also take this opportunity we will have a vote of thanks later but if i could just take this opportunity to thank gail grant and graham donahue who've been helping me here this evening also to thank the events assistants broadcasting and the other scotish parliament staff so i'd like to join me in thanking them please can i now invite all of you to join me in the garden lobby for some refreshments and a chat and i'll ask that everyone is back and seated by 9 25 at the latest please those on the chamber floor could you just wait for a moment until you're instructed by a member of the events team how to get to the garden lobby thank you very much