Terrorism is a loaded word, which people use about an outfit they disapprove of morally. It’s simply not the BBC’s job to tell people who to support and who to condemn - who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.
We regularly point out that the British and other governments have condemned Hamas as a terrorist organisation, but that’s their business. We also run interviews with guests and quote contributors who describe Hamas as terrorists.
The key point is that we don’t say it in our voice. Our business is to present our audiences with the facts, and let them make up their own minds.
As it happens, of course, many of the people who’ve attacked us for not using the word terrorist have seen our pictures, heard our audio or read our stories, and made up their minds on the basis of our reporting, so it’s not as though we’re hiding the truth in any way - far from it.
Any reasonable person would be appalled by the kind of thing we’ve seen. It’s perfectly reasonable to call the incidents that have occurred “atrocities”, because that’s exactly what they are.
No-one can possibly defend the murder of civilians, especially children and even babies - nor attacks on innocent, peace-loving people who are attending a music festival.
Both sides are religious fanatics. But people don’t like it when you state the truth about their side.
Religion is the excuse. Very rarely are conflicts actually driven by religious differences. Most of the time it’s just plain power-hungry people trying to gain power over another group, seize land, gain wealth, etc. Religion is great for galvanizing the masses, though.
Religion is also the means. Are you an ancient Egyptian ruler, who is fed up with having to deal and align with all the temples? Just introduce monotheism, insist you are sent by god, and voila: almost unlimited power.
Just introduce monotheism, insist you are sent by god, and voila: almost unlimited power.
Well about that…
As a pharaoh, Akhenaten is noted for abandoning Egypt’s traditional polytheism and introducing Atenism, or worship centered around Aten. … This culture shift away from traditional religion was reversed after his death. Akhenaten’s monuments were dismantled and hidden, his statues were destroyed, and his name excluded from lists of rulers compiled by later pharaohs.[16]
It’s hard to say whys on stuff that old, but a lot of historians consider this to be a move that was or became vastly unpopular.
Nah, Hamas are religious fanatics but the Israeli govt are Nationalist fanatics, they lean more on the ethnic identity of judaism than the religious identity. Might not seem like a big difference but apparently Israel’s founders almost fought a civil war over this so probably worth remembering lol
“My version of Winnie the Pooh has a bigger dick than yours!”
“I’ll kill you for believing that!”
sigh…
I have always admired the BBC for this.
Almost all journalism outlets have similar policies.
Which leads conspiracy theory types to latch on and post things like “the CBC/BBC wont condemn hamas as terrorists! The mainstream media sucks!”, when in fact these policies have been in place fpr decades
Lots of MSM corps don’t have that same self-control tho.
Actually neither do politicians.
In my experience, most MSM does have that self-control in their journalism. However, it’s pretty common in MSM to spend a large proportion of their airtime and pages on opinions, where they do not have journalistic standards to uphold.
wow. I just realised that MSM means mainstream media. I thought some how it was relayed to the old messenger or something.
I mean, terrorism does have a meaning, beyond just being something any government is going to call a rebellious armed group, what else are you supposed to call a group or individual whose actions are intentionally designed to provoke fear in order to further their goals, to distinguish them from a similar non-state armed group that doesn’t use that strategy?
“One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”
Respect to BBC for doing this.
Somebody’s going to get the sack for this
Do we need to call them a group inciting terror instead? Since people have formed an association that the terrorist’s cause must always be entirely wrong?
Is terror defined by the application or by the reaction? They could be called Terrorists, Militants, Freedom Fighters, Patriots, Defenders, Liberators, or a host of other things. I think one of the things that makes a news source reliable is - as written here - a telling of the facts. That lack of passion is a feature rather than a bug. It lets us hear the propagandists - all propagandists - for who they are by the inciteful rhetoric they use. A teller’s level of vitriol is generally inversely proportional to how much you can trust their account of what is happening.
There’s a difference in strategy though, to make something noteworthy and newsworthy though being shocking rather then tactically significant. Should we not talk about that?
make something noteworthy and newsworthy though being shocking
If you need to make something shocking then you’re just advertising / pandering to a base. News may or may not be noteworthy/newsworthy; whether it is groundbreaking or simply pedestrian is clear in the reading. And just because something is pedestrian doesn’t mean it’s not interesting. Needing things to be shocking in news is like asking for every item of food to be intensely sweet, or salty, or sour. It dulls the sense to meaningful news which isn’t sensationalist and ultimately makes us less aware and inquisitive.
Terrorist’s absolutely use horrific acts to advertise. They can get their name out there and drum up support.
I’m taking about what the news usually is, rather than what it should be. I agree it’d be better your way, but a border skirmish won’t get covered nearly as much as a massacre.
What’s your argument?
That if terrorists do it, news outlets should too?
Imagine setting and maintaining a high bar rather than lowering it every time you get an excuse to do so.
My argument is that terrorists have a grewsome way of getting publicity. They focus on what will be picked up by the (imperfect and sensational) news outlets and conversations. That is different than normal armies, who would focus on degrading the war fighting potential of the other side though tactical strikes on the units actually fighting.
Wouldn’t that just cover both sides of every war?
Ukraine is not committing acts of terror when defending themselves by killing Russian military invaders, so no it does not apply to every war.
Even Russians are trying to cover up their atrocities rather than highlighting them.
By the broadness of the definition presented, I would say that soldiers killing soldiers instills terror in soldiers, so therefore it would still cover them. But to be clear, I disagree with a definition so broad
I would define acts of terror as acts done primarily for their phycological impact on the citizens (of both sides) rather than the tactical impact to the war fighters. But even that is probably to broad.
It’s still less broad at least
Groups conducting acts with the purpose of extreme public terror then. Most countries don’t intentionally conduct phycological warfare on that scale.
