I guess not strictly news - but with all of the vitriol I have seen in discussions on the Israel situation, that have boiled down to arguments over wording, I feel that this take from the BBC is worthy of some discussion.
Mods, feel free to remove if this is not newsy enough.
Bullshit. They’ve used the word ‘terrorist’ for every other attack in the past two decades (9/11, London Bridge, Manchester Arena, 7/7, etc.). Was that not ‘choosing sides’ then?
They just can’t admit that the UK fucked up and condemn Israel because the lawyers told them not to
Here is an article that doesn’t refer to it as “terrorism”:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-40008389
The articles I have seen that refer to it as terrorism, tend to be from local BBC services, rather than the national one.
No its not, they are legally considered terrorists and are on the same list as ISIS or the Taliban.
UK Parliament added Hamas on the list of proscribed terrorist organizations in 2021. Press release here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/islamist-terrorist-group-hamas-banned-in-the-uk
The EU have them listed as well (didn’t bother checking since when).
The US has listed them since 1997 (US Department of Treasury Office of Foreign Asset Control is the agency in charge of sanctions enforcement).
So yeah.
Legally.
The well known phrase is “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”. I Imagine from their point of view, Israel is the ‘terrorist’ group, routinely bombing apartment buildings etc and that their actions are a proportionate counter (recent events nonwithstanding!)
Both sides of the current conflict have/are committing atrocities, but the reporting of those atrocities should be as factual and unbiased as possible.
The best way I’ve heard it described is that they both view the other group of people as existential evil. Far beyond enemies, something which is evil just for existing. Not just the militaries, but the nation, race, state, religion, whatever classification. With that viewpoint, any action you take can be justified. Just as nobody would think twice about killing a million mosquito larvae in a country that has thousands die from malaria, killing a few thousand of the other side is morally neutral at worst.
This is going to continue to be horrific for a while.
The freedom fighters that behead babies, rape woman and abduct people… Oh and also rocketstrike civilians in general…
If you believe in their “freedom” feel free to go there.
Journalists should never label a group of people with an adjective. It’s Journalism 101. Your writing should be free of personal bias and report the facts and quoted statements. No assumptions are allowed.
Lmao what? Terrorists isn’t a adjective. And its not a personal bias its a fact https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_designated_terrorist_groups
The U.S., U.K., E.U., and others designate them as a terrorist group but the U.N. does not. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_designated_terrorist_groups
The reality is that they’re the militant faction of the de facto government of a quasi-state under Israeli occupation. It is complicated so the BBC just says who thinks they’re a terrorist group. That seems reasonable for journalists striving to be neutral.
“Everybody wants to occupy ‘the holy land’ and everyone who is taking part of that sucks”
While Israel has been basically a terrorist state, attacking Palestinians nonchalant, bombing civilian districts, and Hamas has grown in number, also basically being a terrorist state (the iron dome exists for a reason), it feels like we are forgetting that this whole argument comes down to religious rights. The argument will never end. The conflict will never end. Both groups are thumping their book claiming it’s their land. The war will go on for centuries until there’s nothing left to claim. That’s how religious war works, unless some other great motivator stops it.
They have the right to call them whatever they want, that doesn’t make it correct.
It’s pretty ballsy to start using an alt with the same name as the last account you got banned under…
How long you think this one will last?
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.
I miss when this was the standard for news. Now most (e: major) outlets don’t even try to pretend they have no bias and instead push a subjective point. Even when I agree with the point, I don’t like it when my “news” pushes it instead of just, you know, reporting.
Give me the info and let me form my own opinions.
The news in Australia literally adds dramatic music to their edits. They’re disgraceful, and manipulative.
I think your confusing a current affair/today tonight with actual news programs. I channel surf from 5-7:30pm and have never heard the main news programs of 7, 9, 10, SBS, nor the ABC editorialise like that in my 38yrs on this planet. At a stretch, they play clips of articles they’ve already covered at the end with the shows theme song over the top.
Interesting. I see it every time I visit my parents nearly. Doom drama music plays. ‘Journalist’ creates drama. I recommend John Simpson’s book
While us Brits love to complain about the BBC being biased (probably an actual issue for internal UK politics) its good to remember that it’s still a world leading media outlet, and one of very few that can be considered not to be push an agenda. (I imagine I can find a lot of people that can probably disagree with that too…)
Even Routers has started editorialising, and I thought they were just meant to be raw facts!
Pretty much all news sources are good for something, so long as it’s outside of their bias’ sphere of influence. A fully state run national news outlet can potentially give very unbiased news about events in another country - maybe even better than local news sources - so long as there isn’t some conflict of interest.
Absolutely.
It’s also a testament to the terrifying numbing that the passage of time has on events.
They describe WW2 where they called the Nazis, “the enemy”, then in the next sentence compare The IRA to the fucking Nazis.
Not even remotely close.
It is biased and wrong, you can see by the obvious problem in their research, like Hamas is considered terrorists by the entire western world, therefore saying that you don’t call them that because you don’t want people to tell what to think is terrorism support.
I disagree; it’s a loaded, politicized word. Even if you say that the “entire western world” considers Hamas a terrorist organization, that’s a sweeping generalization which, even if it could be called 100% true, does not represent the whole world.
Tell me the facts without giving me those loaded words. I’m smart enough to draw my own conclusions.
A man’s called a terrorist or liberator
A rich man’s a thief or philanthropist
Is one a crusader or ruthless invader?
It’s all in which label is able to persist
There are precious few at ease
With moral ambiguities
So we act as though they don’t exist
You misunderstand.
Proper old-school journalists, like John Simpson, won’t be quick to call someone a terrorist. They will however report on someone who called them a terrorist.
It is their job to report the facts. That means that they report what they see and what they hear. Nothing more. That is journalism.
Coming to the conclusion that someone is a terrorist, isn’t news or journalism. It’s analysis or opinion. Often the journalist is in no position to form an opinion either way, and it’s not really his job anyway.
The reason this sounds weird to many, is because journalism has gone down the shitter. This used to be standard. Reuters for example, is still quite rigorous in this. But most news organisations now mix factual reporting with analysis. Some ‘news’ organisations remove the news/facts entirely. Basically, reading an article written by a good journalist, you should not be able to tell what side of the argument they are.
Eg.
Good: According to Mr. X, the apple was red and tasty. -> the journalist is simply reporting on what Mr. X said. The reader can decide if Mr. X was telling the truth.
Bad: According to Mr. X, the red apple was tasty. -> the journalist wasn’t there to see if the apple was red, Mr. X could be mistaken. The reader doesn’t realise that the colour of the apple was described as being red by Mr. X and can’t form their own opinion on whether to believe Mr. X.
The same thing’s happening in Canada with the CBC; bunch of people calling them out for not saying “terrorist” implying it means they’re in favour of the attacks, when CBC simply has a policy of not saying that about anyone, because it’s not their job.
Because they unambiguously are. Nobody reasonable is debating that. We’re never going to look back and say “actually they were right”
Opinion and interview pieces are obviously different. I didn’t realize Trudeau worked for the cbc.
As long as they are balanced, if you only ever have opinion pieces from one opinion, your just being biased by proxy.
This can lead to being over balanced though and inviting climate deniers etc.
It’s so refreshing to see real journalistic integrity once in a while. Thanks for sharing.
This is hardcore and I respect the shit out of it
No, it’s announcing their cowardice. They use ‘terrorist’ for any other non-Israel/Palestine attack (9/11, London Bridge, 7/7, etc) so the entire argument is invalid.
The lawyers told them not to because everyone’s scared of being called anti-semitic, that’s all
I approve of it. Terrorist is a loaded term designed to draw an emotional response from the reader. Every nation could be called a terrorist organization. Any rebellion could be called terrorists. It’s not a useful term. It’s especially not useful in this case because the number killed by Israel is so much higher than Hamas.
Terrorist is generally just a term used to describe those without power using the tools of their oppressor against them. Fear and violence are only “allowed” to be used if you’re the one with power, for whatever reason. It’s stupid.
Domestic attacks and attacks against allies will be called terrorist attacks obviously, because they see value in supporting the status quo.
Well sure, I agree. But the BBC isn’t taking the moral high ground here. They have previously and will again use the word ‘terrorist’ to evoke an emotional response for international attacks.
It’s a decision that senior lawyers are criticising - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/11/bbc-not-calling-hamas-terrorists-ofcom-top-lawyers/
Interestingly, on their Bitsize page, they describe the Palestinian Liberation Front as a terrorist group, which is true. The mere fact that they have a page on ‘terrorism’ indicates that they don’t take a moral position against the word, just against calling Israel (and Israeli factions/allies) terrorists - https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zy7nqhv/revision/1
The lawyers told them not to because everyone’s scared of being called anti-semitic, that’s all
Honest question, how would labelling the Hamas as terrorists get them to be called anti-semitic?
Anti-semitic, as far as I know, means “against Jews” both in academics and colloquially. Hamas aren’t Jews.
Maybe you meant something like islamophobe instead?
