BBC: Something to Hide?

Of course they do.
We should be sending this story to every cable operator that carries the BBC international. Maybe they can tell us why our channel space is wasted by such a biased organization

Posted by: Sammy Benoit at Oct 16, 2006 7:22:40 PM

Perhaps this is some kind of a British vs American English problem.
I am from the U.S. In my version of the English language, a person who does "acts of terror" is a terrorist. There is no better, more descriptive word than that. There is no "emotional value judgment" involved. If you believe something is an act of terror, you have to believe that the perpetrator is a terrorist.
The statement below is incredible.

Stan

Note the BBC producer guidelines which state: "We must report acts of terror quickly, accurately, fully and responsibly. We should not adopt other people's language as our own. Our credibility is undermined by the careless use of words which carry emotional or value judgments. The word "terrorist" itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding. We should try to avoid the term, without attribution. It is also usually inappropriate to use words like "liberate", "court martial" or "execute" in the absence of a clear judicial process. We should let other people characterise while we report the facts as we know them. We should convey to our audience the full consequences of the act by describing what happened. We should use words which specifically describe the perpetrator such as "bomber", "attacker", "gunmen", "kidnapper", "insurgent" or "militant.""
Our responsibility is to remain impartial and report in ways that enable our audiences to make their own assessments about who is doing what to whom.

Posted by: Stan at Oct 17, 2006 4:19:37 PM