'The BBC cannot see the difference between a criminal and a terrorist'

[unozero]

source

The British Broadcasting Corporation, a state-sponsored but independently run, media organization has attracted sharp criticism for having "double-standards" in its coverage of the Mumbai terror attacks. Most times the BBC reporters referred to the terrorists who attacked Mumbai as "gunmen" or "militants".

Well-known thinker and editor-in-chief of Covert magazine, MJ Akbar has taken up the issue seriously. Since November 27, Akbar has refused to appear on BBC to speak about the Mumbai attacks.

Many British politicians have also taken up the issue with the BBC management. Steve Pound,a British Parliamentarian who represents North Ealing, has issued a strong statement against BBC's biased policy by saying that it was "the worst sort of mealy-mouthed posturing."

Akbar, had gone a step ahead and has written a strongly-worded e-mail to Richard Porter, head of Content, BBC World News. On December 6, Akbar wrote to Porter that, "I just want to let you know that after decades of friendship and association with the BBC, I refused to give an interview to the BBC over the terrorist outrage in Mumbai. The reason is simple: I am appalled, astonished, livid at your inability to describe the events in Mumbai as the work of terrorists. You have called them 'gunmen' as if they were hired security guards on a night out."

Akbar further argued that, "When Britain finds a group of men plotting in a home laboratory your government has no hesitation in creating an international storm, and the BBC has no hesitation in calling them terrorists. When nearly two hundred Indian lives are lost, you cannot find a word in your dictionary more persuasive than 'gunmen'.

Akbar articulated many Indian fans of the BBC when he said," You are not only pathetic, but you have become utterly biased in your reporting. Since we in India believe in freedom of the press, we can do no more than protest, but let me tell you that your credibility, created over long years by fearless and independent journalists like Mark Tully (I am privileged to describe him as a friend), is in tatters and those tatters will not be patched as long as biased non-journalists like you and your superiors are in charge of decisions. Shame on you and your kind."

 

[G-Dub]

Who gives a ****?

If the average viewer is too dumb to interprete the news and has to believe every word that they listen to, I think society has bigger problems than "oh noes, they said gunmen instead of terrorists, be-head them immediately!"

 

[mortiz-Redux]

Talk about being overely sensative, they called the 9/11 hijackers, well hijackers, not terrorists until later on when all the facts were out. I mean it's people like this who were calling Hans Gruber a terrorist and drawing attention away from the fact he was simply trying to get his hands on the money in the vault of the Nakatomi Plaza.

 

[nurizeko]

Damn, I was all ready to waltz in here spouting how I hate the BBC's tofty softy pussy wussy way it deals with thngs, its nuLabour policy bias and sometimes borderline state propaganda and indoctrination in Health&Safety bullshittery, political cortrectness and a more appeasement based form of multiculturalism and minority support.



But I kinda have to agree, that Indian fella seems to have flown of the handle a little, perhaps understandable, it wasn't my city or country that had a running gun battle with gunmen (or terrorists if you prefer), but yeah.

Gunmen seems just as valid a description as terrorist, not-very-nice-person or psychologically lapse serial killing person.


Also he should probably understand that in the UK and the world in general, the term terrorist is thrown around so much its starting to lose its original meaning and become a convenient password for government or personal stupidity.



As for my opinion...the BBC tends to be overall one of the less facepalm worthy channels for news reporting.

India has better things to do then complain about what words are used by a foreign news channel who also have freedom of the press to describe events.

Its not even as if the BBC was like "And we wish death to India and glory to the martyrs" crap like that.


India, you want to vent some anger, take it out on Al Jazeera.

 

[Raziaar]

What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;

 

[Pesmerga]

My butthole smells sweet next to you, Raziaar.

 

[Laivasse]

Whoever Akbar is, he's a ****ing idiot. I felt the exact opposite way about the BBC's coverage. Anyone who had been watching the BBC discussion in the wake of the attacks would have noticed the queue of pundits seeking to link them to Al Qaeda in some way.

'Was it Al Qaeda who did it? ...Maybe we can say Al Qaeda inspired it?? ...Well AT LEAST we can call it an Al Qaeda style attack, surely?????'

This wasn't the BBC's own agenda, to be fair, but they were giving a platform to people spouting this kind of nonsense. And the reason it is nonsense, and repulsive, is because it's an example of people trying to use tragedy to further their own political agenda.

If the attack was carried out by a local group, over exclusively Indian issues, then there's little that people around the globe can do other than offer sympathy. If, on the other hand, you can pretend that there is a link to Al Qaeda - and it doesn't matter how tenuous, because for your listeners to make an emotional connection is all that's required - then that opens up the way to call for more legislation, more support for the War on Turr'r, more irrational fear-based politics, and more support for paternalism in government.

So **** these people who get buttsore over not hearing the word 'terrorist' enough. I have no sympathy with them. The slower our media outlets are to jump to using the word 'terrorist', the more detail and unbiased reporting we can hope to hear. People who desperately seek to label others as terrorists tend to be pushing an agenda that's no friend of freedom.

What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;

Good point! You can always tell when a terrorist is close due to the FOUL REEK OF CURRY!!

 

[Polaris]

BBC is probably best television I know, professional reports with unbiased informations.
I really don't see any problem here...

 

[pomegranate]

Well... based on some commentary I read about these killers, there might actually be a reasonable case for not calling them terrorists. Depending on your interpretation, an act of mass violence isn't terrorism unless it is done to promote a cause or political change - until such a motivation is properly established, they're really just mass murderers. And these guys did kinda come out of the blue, right? I've not paid that much attention but what I did read suggested they had no rationale, just wanting to cause chaos and fear, and weren't associated with any existing terrorist organisations... just some thoughts.

 

[Kase]

Akbar, had gone a step ahead and has written a strongly-worded e-mail

oh noes the horror

but yeh they were men with guns so gunmen is fairly accurate name for them

 

[99.vikram]

And these guys did kinda come out of the blue, right? I've not paid that much attention but what I did read suggested they had no rationale, just wanting to cause chaos and fear, and weren't associated with any existing terrorist organisations... just some thoughts.

The Lashkar-e-Taiba is explicit about it's intentions. This was about Kashmir. The gunmen were picked up from Pakistani villages, trained at camps and sent across the border by boats. You want evidence? The lone surviving gunman confessed to being a Pak national. If you don't trust the confession, how about the fact that his family was located.

Earlier this week, Pakistani news channel Geo TV visited the village, and using a hidden camera recorded the footage of village locals talking about Ajmal and his family.
...
However, when the same news crew revisited, they found the entire village in denial. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, some of them said that Ameer Kasab and his wife Ruqayya have disappeared mysteriously.

This was a well organised terrorist attack aimed to further a definite political cause.

 

[NamelessHenchman]

Well it's somehow understandable because BBC would probably receive furious backlash from Britain's large muslim community for calling these groups outright "terrorists". Especially Pakistanis, a great number of which are sympathetic with the likes of Taleban, LeT, and many more militant groups an average person would call "terrorists". And we all know how "culturally sensitive" media groups can be...

 

[Polaris]

Well it's somehow understandable because BBC would probably receive furious backlash from Britain's large muslim community for calling these groups outright "terrorists". Especially Pakistanis, a great number of which are sympathetic with the likes of Taleban, LeT, and many more militant groups an average person would call "terrorists". And we all know how "culturally sensitive" media groups can be...

Bollocks. Did you ever seen BBC news?

 

[Laivasse]

Casting my mind back, I don't think it's even correct to allege that the word 'terrorist' wasn't used. I'm pretty sure that the BBC widely referred to the shootings as 'the terror attacks in Mumbai'. Maybe they referred to the individuals as 'gunmen', or whatever, but iirc there was no tippytoeing around the issue of whether the attack itself was a terrorist attack or not. In the immediate aftermath, every second arsehole was speculating about a link to Al Qaeda ffs.

This just sounds like bellyaching by some hardliner. Excuse me for not having a clue who this Akbar guy is. As for Stephen Pound, all I know is that he's some kind of Secretary to Stephen Timms, who was a Blairite swine and the MP for my area of East London - among the poorest ****ing boroughs in the country.

Just checked some of Pound's voting record:

Voted against a transparent Parliament.
Voted against introducing a smoking ban.
Voted for introducing ID cards.
Voted for introducing foundation hospitals.
Voted for introducing student top-up fees.
Voted for Labour's anti-terrorism laws.
Voted for the Iraq war.
Voted against investigating the Iraq war.

So yeah, just some piece of shit New Labour nobody.

 

[Polaris]

Here's an example from the BBC news website.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/content/articles/2008/11/27/mumbai_crisis_feature.shtml

On Thursday 27 November Indian security forces surrounded two of the city's hotels, the Trident Oberoi and the Taj Mahal Palace, which had been taken over by the terrorists.
The attacks involved a number of large explosions that caused fires to break out across the area.

That guy must be really some sort of moron.
Yeah, BBC is funded by Arabs. Say no shit about Taliban. Eurabia we be here soon, absolutely.

 

[Laivasse]

Exactly. Even if Akbar was correct it would be a retarded complaint, but he's wrong anyway, which makes him megatarded.

 

[kirovman]

"The BBC cannot see the difference between a criminal and a terrorist"

What, is a terrorist more glamorous or something?

 

[Kadayi]

I thought the gist of it was essentially because the facts regarding who the 'terrorists' were representing wasn't known until later on, and it would have been Journalistically irresponsible to label them as such until the facts were fully established, esp given the term 'terrorist' is almost synonymous with Al Qaeda in the public perception these days.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

Akbar, had gone a step ahead and has written a strongly-worded e-mail to Richard Porter, head of Content, BBC World News. On December 6, Akbar wrote to Porter that, "I just want to let you know that after decades of friendship and association with the BBC, I refused to give an interview to the BBC over the terrorist outrage in Mumbai. The reason is simple: I am appalled, astonished, livid at your inability to describe the events in Mumbai as the work of terrorists. You have called them 'gunmen' as if they were hired security guards on a night out."

Yes, but would that mean that the columbine attacks were carried about by terrorists?

 

[nurizeko]

Every time Kadayi trolls me I feel terrorized, so I want to call him a terrorist and **** you if you don't call him one to.

 

[Kadayi]

Every time Kadayi trolls me I feel terrorized, so I want to call him a terrorist and **** you if you don't call him one to.

The last thing you'll see before the darkness overwhelms you is my :dozey: :naughty:

 

[Sandspider]

Technically terrorist's are a sub category of criminal.

By definition a criminal would be anyone who breaks the law.. so a terrorist may in fact be several types of criminal encompased under a single descriptive.