Another Sign of the Apocalypse
Charles Johnson
Tue May 2, 2006 at 12:38 pm PDT • Views: 213
Today the BBC sort of admitted to a partial … well … let’s just say it, bias. BBC ‘must improve Mid-East view’. (Hat tip: LGF readers.)
The story is tucked away, far from view, deep in their “Entertainment” section.
The BBC fails to always give a “full and fair account” of the Israeli Palestinian conflict but is not deliberately biased, a report has said.
The BBC governors asked an independent panel to scrutinise its output.
Its report said the BBC was committed to being fair, accurate and impartial and UK viewers regarded it as unbiased.
But coverage was not consistently full and fair and “in important respects, presents an incomplete and in that sense misleading picture”, it found.
The independent panel even advised the BBC to take the perilously unprecedented step of using the T word. (Don’t hold your breath for this one.)
The range of stories and perspectives was too narrow and reporters’ use of language was often inconsistent, it decided.
That included the use of the words “terrorism” and “terrorist”. The BBC advises its journalists to avoid the latter because it can be “a barrier to understanding”.
But the panel said the BBC should use “terrorism” to describe violence against civilians with the intention of causing terror for ideological objectives, “whether perpetrated by state or non-state agencies”.
“It seems clear that placing a bomb on a bus used by civilians intending death or injury in supposed furtherance of a cause is a terrorist act and no other expression conveys so tersely and accurately the elements involved.”
Frank says: