- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
Terrorism is a loaded word, which people use about an outfit they disapprove of morally. 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.
We regularly point out that the British and other governments have condemned Hamas as a terrorist organisation, but that’s their business. We also run interviews with guests and quote contributors who describe Hamas as terrorists.
The key point is that we don’t say it in our voice. Our business is to present our audiences with the facts, and let them make up their own minds.
As it happens, of course, many of the people who’ve attacked us for not using the word terrorist have seen our pictures, heard our audio or read our stories, and made up their minds on the basis of our reporting, so it’s not as though we’re hiding the truth in any way - far from it.
Any reasonable person would be appalled by the kind of thing we’ve seen. It’s perfectly reasonable to call the incidents that have occurred “atrocities”, because that’s exactly what they are.
No-one can possibly defend the murder of civilians, especially children and even babies - nor attacks on innocent, peace-loving people who are attending a music festival.
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I have always admired the BBC for this.
Almost all journalism outlets have similar policies.
Which leads conspiracy theory types to latch on and post things like “the CBC/BBC wont condemn hamas as terrorists! The mainstream media sucks!”, when in fact these policies have been in place fpr decades
Lots of MSM corps don’t have that same self-control tho.
Actually neither do politicians.
In my experience, most MSM does have that self-control in their journalism. However, it’s pretty common in MSM to spend a large proportion of their airtime and pages on opinions, where they do not have journalistic standards to uphold.
wow. I just realised that MSM means mainstream media. I thought some how it was relayed to the old messenger or something.
I mean, terrorism does have a meaning, beyond just being something any government is going to call a rebellious armed group, what else are you supposed to call a group or individual whose actions are intentionally designed to provoke fear in order to further their goals, to distinguish them from a similar non-state armed group that doesn’t use that strategy?
Then Id like the ‘settelers’ who engage in terror campaigns using extrajudicial beatings and killings to also be called terrorists by the media, but that’s never going to happen so this is a fine compromise.
What does compromise have to do with truth? If someone is committing an act of terrorism they are a terrorist, regardless of how righteous or awful their cause. Regardless if it is government backed or rebel backed. It is the action and the intent that matters.
If a settler commits an act of terrorism they are a terrorist. If a Hamas person commits an act of terrorism they are a terrorist. If little old lady with a old tabby cat, 9 grandchildren, and spends her weekends helping at food bank commits an act of terrorism she is a terrorist.
What does compromise have to do with truth?
Im just asking the media to be consistent in their logic and labeling. What does the media have to do with the truth?
Not going to argue with you there.
But is their goal terror for a political purpose? I thought they were just going in and taking land and doing slow genocide. That isn’t terrorism (I mean, it’s worse), it’s a different thing.
Is driving Palestinians out of their homes for the crime of being Palestinian in order to assign their land not political? Its seems pretty close to ethnic cleansing, remove the Palestinian, implant the Jew, repeat.
No, it’s not political. It has a political element, but so does basically everything. Which would render the word “terrorism” useless.
The main goal of annexation isn’t politics. It’s theft. The Palestinians have a thing the Israelis want (land) and the Israelis are stealing it. That’s conquest, and genocide, not terrorism
Bold take that a conquest between two states is not political.
So all war, ever, including defensive war, is terrorism? Not super useful.
There are multiple definitions of political, and you’re using the least useful one.
All war is political, dont shift the goalposts. Non state entities (settlers in this case) doing acts of war on specific ethnic populations is political terror.
“One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”
Respect to BBC for doing this.
Do we need to call them a group inciting terror instead? Since people have formed an association that the terrorist’s cause must always be entirely wrong?
Is terror defined by the application or by the reaction? They could be called Terrorists, Militants, Freedom Fighters, Patriots, Defenders, Liberators, or a host of other things. I think one of the things that makes a news source reliable is - as written here - a telling of the facts. That lack of passion is a feature rather than a bug. It lets us hear the propagandists - all propagandists - for who they are by the inciteful rhetoric they use. A teller’s level of vitriol is generally inversely proportional to how much you can trust their account of what is happening.
There’s a difference in strategy though, to make something noteworthy and newsworthy though being shocking rather then tactically significant. Should we not talk about that?
make something noteworthy and newsworthy though being shocking
If you need to make something shocking then you’re just advertising / pandering to a base. News may or may not be noteworthy/newsworthy; whether it is groundbreaking or simply pedestrian is clear in the reading. And just because something is pedestrian doesn’t mean it’s not interesting. Needing things to be shocking in news is like asking for every item of food to be intensely sweet, or salty, or sour. It dulls the sense to meaningful news which isn’t sensationalist and ultimately makes us less aware and inquisitive.
Terrorist’s absolutely use horrific acts to advertise. They can get their name out there and drum up support.
I’m taking about what the news usually is, rather than what it should be. I agree it’d be better your way, but a border skirmish won’t get covered nearly as much as a massacre.
Removed by mod
My argument is that terrorists have a grewsome way of getting publicity. They focus on what will be picked up by the (imperfect and sensational) news outlets and conversations. That is different than normal armies, who would focus on degrading the war fighting potential of the other side though tactical strikes on the units actually fighting.
Wouldn’t that just cover both sides of every war?
Ukraine is not committing acts of terror when defending themselves by killing Russian military invaders, so no it does not apply to every war.
Even Russians are trying to cover up their atrocities rather than highlighting them.
By the broadness of the definition presented, I would say that soldiers killing soldiers instills terror in soldiers, so therefore it would still cover them. But to be clear, I disagree with a definition so broad
I would define acts of terror as acts done primarily for their phycological impact on the citizens (of both sides) rather than the tactical impact to the war fighters. But even that is probably to broad.
It’s still less broad at least
Groups conducting acts with the purpose of extreme public terror then. Most countries don’t intentionally conduct phycological warfare on that scale.
Somebody’s going to get the sack for this
