– over the last few days David Chater of Sky News has been using the word ‘terrorist’ to describe the terrorists involved in the Beslan massacre. This evening another Sky News journalist, Juliet Errington, also used the word terrorist in a Beslan report. It’s good to see Sky News moving away from the dishonesty, deception and moral equivalence of describing anyone with quasi-political grievances, guns and bombs as ‘militants’. I suppose it’s too much to hope that the BBC will be honest enough to start describing people who are clearly terrorists (by dint of causing terror, whatever their alleged grievance) as terrorists – even if they confine themselves, for now, to describing those who shoot children in the back rather than let them live another day as ‘terrorists’. And of course Sky News isn’t paid for by a compulsory telly-tax on every TV viewing household in the land.
A refreshing change
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Interesting you mention this – whilst driving to work yesterday morning I was jolted from my usual daydreaming when I heard on Radio 4 news the word “terrorist” used not just once, but *twice* in relation to the Beslan massacre. I don’t normally listen/watch the BBC anymore, so I can’t comment on whether this was a one-off or not, but it certainly rocked my world for a couple of minutes, anyway.