THE BBC has told its reporters not to use the word “kidnapped” when describing the US government’s allegedly illegal abduction of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
The directive was revealed by The National contributor Owen Jones, who said it had been passed to him by a member of BBC staff.
Except this is a complete lie and the BBC very frequently calls Hamas a terrorist organisation.
And the BBC very frequently engages in exactly the type of language which is forbidden here. For example it will call Israelis, even IDF soldier captives “kidnapped” or “hostages” but refuses to call Palestinian children who are kidnapped by Israel “kidnapped” and instead says they are arrested or detained.
This excuse of “impartiality” is a proven fraud.
I don’t think the BBC do call Hamas a terrorist organisation. They might say something like “Hamas, designated by the UK government as a terrorist organisation” which is true - the UK government does have that designation. That isn’t the same thing as the BBC calling Hamas a terrorist organisation.
Also the BBC might not always get it right but I think they do aim for impartiality, and I think they do a good job most of the time. People on the far-right think the BBC is too much on the left, and people on the far-left think the BBC is too much on the right.
Literally the same thing. Does the BBC also say “Israel, which according to the UN is committing Genocide”?
Does it say “Israel ran healthcare ministry” like it does for the Palestinian “Hamas ran” healthcare ministry? (Which it started doing almost exclusively only after Oct 7).
What does it call the October 7 resistance? That’s right a “massacare”. What does it call Israel genociding 100.000 people in a concentration camp?
The BBC did report on a UN commission saying that Israel committed genocide. Here’s the headline:
As for the “Hamas-run health ministry”, Hamas of course is not the government of all of Palestine. Some people might think the health ministry in Gaza is run by the Palestinian Authority, so the BBC is making clear that it’s Hamas who runs it.
In the article I just linked to, the BBC refers to October 7th as “the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks”, not as a “massacre”. I don’t know whether other articles use the word “massacre”. As for “resistance”, I’m not sure that killing civilians is a justified act of “resistance”. Surely it is wrong to kill any civilian, whether they are Palestinian, or Israeli, or any nationality. Of course Palestine has faced conditions they shouldn’t have faced (Israel shouldn’t be blockading Gaza, Israel should recognise Palestinian statehood with the Palestinian Authority leading it), but I don’t think the right answer to that is killing civilians.
Anyway I originally just wanted to explain why the BBC doesn’t condemn events in the news; they try to not morally judge the news they are reporting on. They might not always get it right though.
Care to provide a single example?
I remember there was a small fuss a couple of years ago because the BBC refused to call Hamas a terrorist organisation. So it would seem strange if they were calling Hamas terrorists now, after making such a big thing of it.
Read the bold text and tell me with a straight face that is neutral language.
Also the BBC calls Hamas terrorists in plenty of articles.
Then it will be very straightforward for you to find one. Not “the UK government has designated as terrorists”, but them actually calling Hamas terrorists.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I couldn’t find one example in my cursory search. It’s your claim, back it up or piss off.
Maybe you’re mistaking me for someone else? I never said I thought the BBC is neutral. Me asking for a source for your unlikely claim doesn’t mean I’m attacking everything you said. Stick to the point.
Scroll down instead of pretending that this hasn’t been debunked in this thread.
I get a notification on my app, I reply. Funnily enough I’m not actually keeping up-to-date with what you have to say elsewhere.
The trouble is, I agree with you about the BBC and neutrality.
But spouting bullshit you refuse to back up (seriously, just one link to an article where the BBC call Hamas terrorists, that’s all I’m asking) lowers the quality of the debate for everyone, and makes the rest of your argument look weak.