Further to Andrew Bowman’s post below, take a look at this: UK on Terror Alert. I think the starkness of the atrocity at Beslan may have prompted a change of policy. If so, better late than never.
But was there ever a policy of avoiding the world terrorist? Readers here may not be in much doubt. We’ve been tracking this very issue for months, and when we do find a use of “terrorist”, marking it specially, until the BBC change it back.
Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber — a blogger for whom I have a lot of respect – has posted this criticism of a Daniel Pipes piece in which Pipes scornfully cited various euphemisms for “terrorist” in the media. [ADDED LATER: for those who didn’t follow the link, the criticism of Pipes is IMO justified] My post here was partly prompted by Chris Bertram’s but is not a comprehensive reply to it. His post was about the Pipes piece but I concentrate on the BBC, since that’s what this site is about. For the record, though, I am in no doubt that the strained avoidance of the word terrorist by Reuters, the Associated Press, the Guardian, the Independent and other privately run organisations does take place and is morally wrong. I have been told by an employee of Reuters that it is company policy not to use the T-word, and that the policy causes anger among many employees.
But I object less strongly in the case of these private organisations than I do in the case of the BBC, because, as Andrew says, unlike Reuters et al the BBC is paid for by a compulsory tax on the British people. It goes out under the name of my country. Come charter renewal time, the domestic BBC justifies the license fee by saying that we, the British people, are getting a public good (“The public interest must remain at the heart of all the BBC does.” – Michael Grade, Chairman.) Likewise the BBC World Service, funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the same Vote as the British Council, explicitly presents itself as bringing a benefit to Britain and the world.
But there is no more rock-bottom public good or benefit than not being randomly murdered. The BBC is obliged by its Charter and accompanying agreement to show “due impartiality” between political opinions but this is specifically stated not to mean “detachment from fundamental democratic* principles.” The BBC has no more right to be impartial between a victim of terrorism and a terrorist than it has the right to be impartial between a rape victim and a rapist. (Although it must be careful to respect the right to a fair trial of those accused of rape, terrorism or any other crime.)
This website is devoted to uncovering cases where the BBC expresses an improper partiality between parties and ideologies within the covenant, so to speak, and cases where it displays an improper impartiality between those within and those without. Impartiality or partiality is expressed through language. Hence the fuss that this website makes over quite small distinctions of language. The question at issue today is one word, terrorist, and its derivatives.
I can’t think of any other reason to avoid the T-word other than improper impartiality.
So. Is the BBC avoiding the word “terrorist”? I don’t mean in quotes from others, I mean in its own voice. To find out I have done a search through all the BBC News stories that used any of the words “terrorist”, “terrorists”, or “terrorism” from 1 September until today, 9 September. The results confirm my opinion that there is either a policy or a habit at the BBC of avoiding referring to terrorists as terrorists, but I think I do see a slight change since Beslan. Here they are:
“Massive blast at Jakarta Embassy.” (8 Sep.)Refers to “Indonesia’s wave of terror” and “The threat of a terrorist attack” (on Australia). Other uses of the T-word are quotes.
“Terror subjects held until Friday.” (9 Sep) Uses the T-word impersonally in headline.
European Press Review. In the intro there is one quote that, despite putting the word “terrorists” outside the quote marks (“Moscow’s threat to carry out pre-emptive strikes against terrorists “anywhere in the world” draws criticism…”), does not, I think, amount to the BBC using the word in its own voice. All other uses of the T-word were clearly quotes.
Russia bites back after seige. Includes the quote “Questions about the roots of terrorism and the clumsy handling of the siege were put aside.” This implies, albeit in a very BBC context, that the Beslan killings were terrorism. Incidentally, the author couldn’t resist a bit of editorialising on the side. He says that “not one senior official in Moscow, from the president down, has said sorry to the parents of Beslan.”
I’ve realised that in order to get this done in the time I have I’m going to have to stop typing in the links. The stories are there if you search the BBC news archive.
Hampshire terror suspects held. (8 Sep.) Earlier version of story above.
European Press review. (8 Sep.) All uses of T-word were quotes and don’t count.
Mass rallies for Beslan victims (8 Sep.)Includes “…rallied against terrorism”, which implies some took place. All other uses of the T-word were quotes. From now on I will use the acronym AUTWQ standing for “All Uses of the T-Word were Quotes.”
Press bares Russian soul. (8 Sep.) AUTWQ.
Arab Journalist Attacks Radical Islam. (8 Sep.) AUTWQ.
European Press Review (8 Sep.) AUTWQ.
Mass rallies for Beslan victims. (8 Sep.) Reference to “rallied against terrorism”. From then on AUTWQ.
Arab journalist attacks radical Islam (8 Sep.)AUTWQ.
European Press review. (7 Sep.) AUTWQ.
Voters’ Views: Jorge Caspary (6 Sep.) AUTWQ.
Voters’ Views: Laura Stietz (6 Sep.) AUTWQ.
Analysis: Russia’s Caucasus Quagmire. (6 Sep.) Direct use of the T-word by the author, Dr Jonathan Eyal. (A visiting expert rather than a BBC employee so far as I can see.)
Chechnya: Why Putin is implacable (6 Sep.) “Mr Puttin also added into this complex mix the spectre of international (by which he means Islamic) terrorism”. “Terrorism” also used as a section heading.
School seige: Russians react (6 Sep.) AUTWQ.
World Press veiws Beslan fallout (6 Sep.) AUTWQ.
Europrean Press review. (6 Sep.) AUTWQ.
Mid-East press appalled by seige (5 Sep.) AUTWQ. And not all of them were appalled.
Excerpts from Putin’s address. (5 Sep.) AUTWQ.
School seige: Russians react (3 Sep.) Earlier version of 6 Sep. story. AUTWQ.
In quotes – Russia crisis reaction. (3 Sep.) AUTWQ.
Terror accused in year trial wait. (3 Sep.) Direct use of T-word by BBC in own voice by BBC. But see below.
Terror laws targeting criticised. (3 Sep.) Refers to “terror laws”. In common with similar stories this usage could be not-ncessarily-approving shorthand for the actual name of the Prevention of Terrorism Acts, or could be an implication that terror really takes place.
Weblog: Republican convention (3 Sep.) AUTWQ. The intro refers to “radical groups” and “kidnappers”.
European Press review (3 Sep.) Use of T-word in abstract in the intro “… question the government’s ability to tackle terrorism.”
Full text: Bush’s address. (3 Sep.) AUTWQ.
Analysis: the US and Russia on terrorism. (2 Sep.) The author, Jonathan Marcus, used the phrase “war on terror” without the customary quote marks.
Full text: Dick Cheney’s speech. (2 Sep.) AUTWQ.
Russian press in agony. (2 Sep.) AUTWQ.
European press review. (2 Sep.) AUTWQ.
Press laments Beersheba bombers. (1 Sep.)AUTWQ.
Terror reports grip Russian media. (1 Sep.) “Terror” is in the title, as you see.
Tears of anger in Nepal. (1 Sep.) AUTWQ, but the intro did refer to the “murder” of 12 Nepalis in Iraq even though one man’s murderer is another man’s militant.
Well there you are. This month there have been a few uses of the T-word by the BBC in its own voice. But mostly the word appears only as a quote. A large proportion of the citations were press reviews of one sort or another. I didn’t find any references by the BBC in its own voice to those who carried out the killings at Beslan as being terrorists. They were hostage-takers, rebels, radicals – the same word they use for the young Alan Milburn.
The BBC refers to those who behead Nepali hostages on camera, not to mention killing Turkish and American hostages, as “militants”, the same word they use to describe striking miners. If the BBC can’t tell the difference how can they claim to be fulfilling their purpose to “educate and inform”?
I noticed a greater willingness to refer to terrorism/terrorists in the abstract or in the future as opposed to specific terrorist acts that have already happened. I got the impression that the BBC was waiting for a terrorist act bad enough to merit the description. Maybe in Beslan it finally found one. We’ll see.
One thing I have not yet done but will if I have time is carry out an archive search for the word “terror”. This would take more time and more selectivity because there are many non-political uses of the word, and even a person who will not acknowledge that the Beslan terrorists were terrorists probably will acknowledge that the hostages felt terror.
Can I pre-emptively knock down some straw men that came up in the Crooked Timber comments?
– I don’t expect detachment from democratic (or indeed human) values from a broadcaster claiming to offer a public service, but I don’t expect excessive emotionalism either. It is not the place of the BBC to call terrorists scum. Just say what they are.
– I’m not saying literally every mention of terrorists in an article about terrorists should use the word “terrorist.” Again, compare it to the case of rape. An article about a rape will usually sometimes also use other words like “attacker” or “assailant.” But if it strove to avoid using the word “rapist” for fear of appearing judgemental, you’d start to wonder.
– Neither am I saying every that all those who, for instance, attack coalition soldiers in Iraq, should be referred to as “terrorists”. “War criminals” would do fine. (The guerillas don’t wear identifying marks as required by the laws of war.) The distinction between guerilla warfare and terrorism is discussed by Michael Walzer in his valuable book Just and Unjust Wars. One could imagine a Venn diagram of semi-overlapping sets for such words as “guerillas”, “insurgents”, “rebels”, and terrorists. If, say, Fatah or Hamas restricted themselves to Israeli military targets I would still want them to lose – and ask what happened to declarations of war – but a defensible case could be made that they were not terrorists. They don’t so they are.
There may be borderline cases, but those who shoot fleeing children in the back for political reasons are not one of them. It isn’t that hard to tell. Those who fly planes into skyscrapers are terrorists. Those who blow up pizza parlours and buses are terrorists.
I’m quite aware that US bombs dropped during the Iraq war killed civilians. The difference was that the US would have been delighted if they could have killed Saddam but not killed those civilians. That difference still applies whatever you think of the Iraq war.
The distinction between jus ad bellum and jus in bello isn’t that hard to understand either: the launch of bombs or missiles against US or Coalition forces by the Iraqi forces was not in any way a terrorist act.
The rights and wrongs of the Chechen conflict do not alter the terrorist nature of the killers of Beslan. So why is the BBC so leery of describing them as terrorists?
*”Democratic” here implicitly means “democratic as understood in a modern liberal-democratic state” i.e. that individuals and minorities retain certain rights even if the majority hate them.
Natalie, Just for the sake of avoiding misunderstanding let me make clear that my post at Crooked Timber was very narrowly focused (notwithstanding the way the comments thread went afterwards). Pipes claimed that journalist in general were reluctant to use the word “terrorist” (etc.) in connection with the murders at Beslan. He cited 20 articles to support this claim (only one of which was from the BBC). I showed that many of the articles did, in fact, use the word or related words and that therefore the evidence Pipes adduced in support of his claim didn’t support it.
Comment continued …
On the specific question of the BBC, I agreed that the article on the BBC website that Pipes pointed do did not use the word and that this was one piece of evidence that supported his claims. However, I also noticed that I had heard BBC journalists on Radio 5 (I pricked up my ears because I was fact-checking Pipes at the time) use the word “terrorists” about the Beslan murderers. You are correct, as far as I can tell, about the BBC website.
s and and other political actors.
Comment continued …
As I said, I focused on the narrow issue of whether Pipes’s evidence supported his claims (it didn’t). There’s also the broader question of what policy news organizations should have. I didn’t touch on this. I think that I would simply say this: that while I think it quite correct to describe the Beslan murderers as terrorists, the problem for news organizations arises partly from the attempt by states to stigmatize all and any armed opposition as “terrorist”. I’d be more sympathetic to critics of journalistic reluctance to use the words if those same critics aslo expressed their disapproval of over-expansive use of those words by state
(Aaargh – had to cut and paste to three separate comments to circumvent your character limit – the last line of my second comment belongs at the end of the third one!)
It appears that your dislike to Daniel Pipes overcomes the need to being honest.
Why not write the above in your blog?
There you are calling him a lyer. Here you give excuses.
Bah.
This is a crucial debate and one that this site does a lot to highlight.
If our media cannot in principle distinguish between terrorism and violent acts that are not terroristic in nature then there isn’t much hope for our society.
We can all argue over what counts as terrorism (was Hiroshima terrorism?) but the BBC and other news organisations have gone a step further and tried to eliminate the concept of terrorism. We know that attempt was doomed to failure in an intellectual sense, but if it succeeds in a practical sense (i.e. bannig use of the word terror in all contexts) then we really have moved into an Orwellian era.
Personally I think reality is breaking through – not least perhaps because of the recent targetting of journalists and the absolute moral low of Beslan.
David Field
I don’t in fact think that Pipes’ article is at all a good exposition of the idea he’s putting forward. He could have at least have looked hard enough at the UPI story to see “terrorist” peppered all over the first few paragraphs.
Still the BBC, AP and Reuters between them cover an enormous chunk of the world’s news that is perceived and sold as impartial, and they do dodge the word. You can probably tell that I am especially annoyed at the BBC.
On the tendency of states to attempt to describe all armed opposition as terrorist, I’d say (1) two blacks don’t make a white, as I’m sure you agree, and (2) though my line about “‘war criminals’ would be fine” was intended as black humour, I am perfectly serious about wanting a revival of interest in the laws of war, and discussion of which laws if any are being broken by particular states/groups.
The crucial question it seems to me is whether the BBC, in only sprinkling their journalism with the word (as they must do to avoid being named and shamed internationally) are trying to avoid a situation where the public’s outrage at the use of terrorism automatically invalidates the cause in which it is used.
Really they’re just holding the door open to acts of violence against the West (for want of a better word) because the West is open to blame in the BBC’s eyes (not that the BBC is part of the West- they’re above all that).
Is it time, then, for a contemporary definition of ‘terrorism’ so that its apolitical use may impartially describe a political action?
ie “the use of violence by an ideologically-motivated organised group against an uninvolved third party, usually innocent civilians, to attempt to extort an ideological outcome from an established government system” or something along those lines?
The SOED has terrorism defined as:
“Terrorist principles and practices; the systematic employment of violence and intimidation to coerce a government or community, esp. into acceding to specific political demands; the fact of terrorizing or being terrorized.”
Although nowadays it’s not just specific political demands – it’s also being used to further the general ideology/philosophy of a small demented subset of Muslims who want to bomb the West back to the stone age.
BBC News personnel have no problem defining terrorism when it suits them:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1201273.stm
Richard Sambrook, director of BBC News, said security had been stepped up on Sunday, and the need for further precautions was being reviewed.
He told the BBC’s Breakfast With Frost programme: “The BBC is a very high profile organisation and that may well be the reason for it.”
Terrorist attacks on the media were rare and so the bomb marked a significant change, he said.
That old definition of a liberal as being “someone whose interests aren’t currently threatened” has a ring of truth.
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“Multiple uses of the words “Terrorism”, “Terror” and “Terrorist” at the BBC – blip or trend?”
Answer: Blip.
This is the current summary of events by the so-called bbc. This is written while the aftermath of this massacre is being revealed.It was written following the fact that little childeren were being shot at in the back while fleeing.
Still. the murderous bastards are described as militants, hostage-takers and rebels.
Aldo-
\‘”the use of violence by an ideologically-motivated organised group against an uninvolved third party, usually innocent civilians, to attempt to extort an ideological outcome from an established government system” or something along those lines?’
I think that’s pretty good, as long as not too narrowly applied. The BBC wouldn’t be comfortable with it though because they like to preserve for themselves the judgement of when a government system is established. Are the acts of the terrorists in Iraq, killing Iraqis, actually acts of terrorism as I have just declared them to be through my language?
The BBC have never viewed them that way- certainly not say, in the case of the four men ‘lynched’ in Fallujah earlier this year. I viewed that as terrorism because the contractors would have harmed no-one, and were fighting no-one (ok, I think they were security guards, but they guard rather than fight), and were slaughtered and abused for political purpo
purposes.
Of course this sounds an extreme definition, but the hideousness of these tactics needs outright condemnation.
You know the vast majority of people laugh at the kind of content this blog is full of? It reads very like those ones by schizophrenics, or the ramblings of small-town Americans obsessed by the machinations of the ‘federal government’.
Actually the kind of content this blog is full of ought to be taken much more seriously than it is here- but that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I never judge things by what ‘the vast majority of people laugh at’.
BTW unlike Jin I think its safe to say BBBC despises neither small town Americans suspicious of federal govt. or people unfortunate enough to have schizophrenia. If we have any problem here it might possibly be monomania, but I somehow doubt it.
Now, this could be an interesting thread on the subject of defining terrorism and whether the BBC does its public duty in reporting it. Anyone care to continue?
Al-Qaeda is the most terrorist bunch of terrorists there is. Just about every country in the world, and certainly every country that can remotely be described as free and democratic, regards al-Qaeda as terrorists. Even the United Nations regards al-Qaeda as terrorists.
Yet this isn’t good enough for the BBC, which insists – even on the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks – to describe them as “militants”.
US marks three years since 9/11
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3646874.stm
I stick with my description of the BBC as perverts. Using the same word to describe the terrorists who did that as they use to describe train drivers in an industrial dispute is perverse.
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I really thought I was going crazy by the lack of the word “terrorist” in the coverage of the Beslan story.
I think this is more a case of the prevailing opinion among “right-thinking” media types in the UK who hold up any former colonial, darker complected people wearing cammies as proper revolutionaries, no matter what tactics they use. Who wouldn’t want to be, say, a glamourous field reporter reporting on some Che Guevara?
Also, some Muslim groups in both the US and the UK are quick with threats (veiled or otherwise) to publishing interests that publish things inimical to the Jihad. My mother even received threats for painting a commissioned mural commemorating September 11 that featured in an art magazine.
Events like 9/11 and Beslan demand that we take sides for or against the Jihad. Unfortunately, our press, and our liberal “thinkers” have chosen which side they are on, without thinking much about it.