as noted by commenters here. The story reports that:
The BBC has re-edited some of its coverage of the London Underground and bus bombings to avoid labelling the perpetrators as “terrorists”, it was disclosed yesterday.
Early reporting of the attacks on the BBC’s website spoke of terrorists but the same coverage was changed to describe the attackers simply as “bombers”.
The BBC’s guidelines state that its credibility is undermined by the “careless use of words which carry emotional or value judgments”.
Consequently, “the word ‘terrorist’ itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding” and its use should be “avoided”, the guidelines say.
Rod Liddle, a former editor of the Today programme, has accused the BBC of “institutionalised political correctness” in its coverage of British Muslims.
A BBC spokesman said last night: “The word terrorist is not banned from the BBC.”
Though many of us here welcomed the BBC’s, albeit hypocritical, use of the word ‘terrorist’ (where, according to the BBC, London bus bombers are ‘terrorists’, while Palestinian bus bombers are mere ‘militants’) to describe murdering scumbags who are, clearly, terrorists, if the BBC have actually gone to the lengths of re-editing material, after the fact, to remove the word ‘terrorist’ then their hypocrisy knows no bounds – the rewriting of history, BBC Ministry of Truth style.
If the BBC is truly honest, next time (and sadly I expect there will be a next time) there is a terrorist atrocity in the UK, let them refer openly, as is their wont, to the cowardly murderers as ‘militants’, ‘insurgents’ and ‘bombers’ – then let’s see how long the BBC’s politically-correct fifth-column naifs last when their adoring telly-taxpaying public sees the stark reality of the BBC’s detachment from the common-sense and decency of the hard-working compulsory telly-taxpayers that it supposedly serves.
Sickening.
Update: Examples of rewrites at BBC News Online, courtesy of Harry, and an update explaining how the leftie-PC view was reimposed at the BBC.
Incidentally, does everyone on here support the extradition of Luis Posada Carriles?
The BBC is engaging in willful blindness, and it is fooling no one.
Everyone, even the BBC PC censors, knows that this is indeed about Islam.
Pretending this is not Islamic terror is methodical stupidity, imo.
Truth may be unpleasant, but it is simply the truth.
http://veraciraptor.blogspot.com
OT
This is priceless, from Fox
“According to British media reports, three of the four are described as British nationals of Pakistani origin, all of whom lived in and around Leeds (search) in the English Midlands, which is heavily populated with lower- and lower-middle-class blue-collar workers.”
Slightly off topic, but not much, I see the BBC’s “The Power of Nightmares” has suddenly and quite inexplicably been removed from Australian TV Network SBS’s schedule.
Will the series now start to disappear from the BBC’s collective memory?
Rod Bishop
Your chosen snippet from Fox seems to me to be 100% accurate and probably demographically proveable, exactly what is your issue?
Rod – another bit of O’Reilly’s ignorance allowed the BBC apologist to claim that it was only Galloway (& not the BBC)that blamed the UK electorate. We know Galloway’s view is supported by Reynolds, the Panorama team & Frank “Root Causes” Gardiner.
O’Reilly did make one mistake. The apologist said that the BBC would use the T word in reporting what people said. But their online report excised the T word that appeared 12 times in the Prime Minister’s statement on Monday. Just dropped it down the memory hole. All you have to do is compare the texgt of the statement as published in the Guardian with the BBC website report.
This is not just a game oif semantics. The BBC is skewing what our elected PM said in a formal statement to the Commons.
If people can’t see that as disgraceful, and actually against the small print of the ridiculius T-word policy the BBC pretends, then we are in Wonderland. Where words mean what we want them to mean.
From the Mosey piece linked above, explaining the BBC’s journalistic “standards”:However, we will not report mere rumour and nor will we run casualty figures, as the most obvious example, without being able to verify them.
A blatant and barefaced lie. BBC online was happy to give prominent space to the spurious Internet rumor, without veryifying of course, that the US military caused the Indian Ocean tsunami. They even launched a “talking points” feature with that “article” inviting moonbats from all around the world to pile on the US for its “crime.”
Mini ha ha
I assume geography is not your strongpoint as the phrase “English Midlands” fails to raise your eyebrow. Leeds is not in the Midlands.
As for the demographics part I’m not even sure what it means, but I bet the population of Leeds would disagree.
I wasn’t sure where Leeds was either – being American – but I checked my atlas and it’s in Kent which even I know is not ‘the Midlands’. Fox should have been more careful.
A colleague based in Chesterfield contacted me at lunchtime to say there has been a bombing in Derby University. Her daughter is at the University and phoned her mum to assure her she was “OK”. Nothing has appeared on the BBC website yet. Maybe its just a rumour doing the rounds, maybe not.
“But their online report excised the T word that appeared 12 times in the Prime Minister’s statement on Monday”
Not in the highlights:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4672749.stm
Not in the full statement available on the same page as a video.
Not in the text of the full statement available on the BBC, containing numerous uses of the word “terrorist”, not dropped down the memory hole:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4673221.stm
Not skewing a formal statement. Not disgraceful.
JohninLondon, you have just wasted five minutes of my time!
On a quick count the BBC transcript of the PM’s speech has terror or terrorism 10 times, but I only count 11 in the Downing Street transcript (not counting references to anti-terror, counter-terrorism, Terrorism Bill etc in both).
This discrepancy seems to be because the BBC has left out the PM’s introductory paragraph.
Mysterious
I doubly wasted my time as anonymous had already refuted it 🙁
Roxana,
Leeds is in Yorkshire, arguably not far from the geographical middle of the country but universally recognised as being ‘oop North’. It would certainly consider itself to be increasingly white collar, although like all cities it has it’s rough areas. The Fox report was presumably put together by someone with a map and a set of stats rather than any real knowledge of the place.
Leeds Castle is in Kent which although very pretty is entirely unconnected with the city.
As the erstwhile terrorists, now bombers, have proved to be home grown, shouldn’t they properly be called insurgents?
Not refuted, Anonymous. The Beeb would know that most people would prefer to read the “highlights” rather than the full text of Blair’s speech.
crankyankee:
As the erstwhile terrorists, now bombers, have proved to be home grown, shouldn’t they properly be called insurgents?
Nail, hammer, head.
Rod Bishop: “I doubly wasted my time…”
Are you sure it’s your time you wasted ‘Rod’? Or was it the telly-taxpayers time? 🙂
Shocking!
You must read Stephen Pollard’s “discusion” with Peter Marshall of Newsnight.
Marshall displays all the prejudice & arrogance that we expect from BBC hacks.
http://www.stephenpollard.net/002218.html
“Not refuted, Anonymous. The Beeb would know that most people would prefer to read the “highlights” rather than the full text of Blair’s speech.”
The highlights don’t change his words either. The T word is in there too.
Bomb suspect’s family ‘shattered’
Bashir Ahmed, 65, said the family of Shehzad Tanweer, who recently studied religion in Pakistan, could not accept he was capable of the bombings.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4679001.stm
Oh dear.
Father: “Where do you fancy going on holiday son? Majorca or Ibiza on one of those fun 18-30 trips? Water sports? Girls? sea, sand, surf etc?”
Son: “No, I fancy going to Pakistan to study religion”
Father: “Sounds like fun. Good lad”
Now the BBC have confirmed the truth for themselves about their biased reporting in relation to the T-reason.
In the Telegraph article posted by John above http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/07/13/do1302.xm
Within hours of the explosions, a memo was sent to senior editors on the main BBC news programmes from Helen Boaden, head of news. While she was aware “we are dancing on the head of a pin”, the BBC was very worried about offending its World Service audience, she said.
Obviously more worried about their World Service audience than informing the public properly that pays for them.
A row has now broken out with a handful of the corporation’s most senior journalists and news executives, fighting what one described yesterday as a “disgusting and appalling” edict. He was particularly angry, he added, because most World Service listeners don’t even pay a penny for the BBC.
This is outrageous and they should now be hauled over the coals to get their allegiance right.
Fact: The BBC changed the PM’s statement to the House of Commons (by deliberately omiting the word “terrorist” and here it is in black & white:
What TB actually said (as correctly reported in full by BBC here)
Tony Blair’s Commons statement
Monday, 11 July, 2005, 16:19 GMT 17:19 UK
“It seems probable that the attack was carried out by Islamist extremist terrorists,….”
and here is the disgusting perversion of the PM’s statement still online, posted a mere 45 minutes later by an “on-message” journo who had obviously read the ‘reminder’ from the Ministry of Truth:
Blair vows to hunt down bombers
Monday, 11 July, 2005, 16:46 GMT 17:46 UK
http://newswww.bbc.net.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4670945.stm
spot the missing word:
“Those responsible for killing 52 and injuring more than 700, probably Islamic extremists, would be hunted down.”
I don’t know if the BBC knows what it is doing – or whether there is a revolt amongst some journos who want to ‘do the right thing’ i.e. call a terrorist a terrorist.
Did any “journalist” ask who organised the trip or who suggested it.
You know for a religion with a spontaneous human explosion problem they seem remarkably unenquiring.
Rob: It’s a repeat of the ‘Tipton Taliban’. Picked up by the US military on the ‘holiday’ battlefields of Afghanistan. Do we learn nothing?
“Those responsible for killing 52 and injuring more than 700, probably Islamic extremists, would be hunted down.”
Of course, what you fail to note is that Blair isn’t being quoted there, his speech is being summarised.
They haven’t misquoted Blair because they weren’t quoting him. You might as well be accusing them of censoring him because they haven’t provided the whole speech.
To recap: in the three places Blair’s statement is directly quoted or featured on the BBC website, his use of the t word is there.
Comparing a direct quote with a summarised version of what he said is apples and pears.
I’m sorry Miam, but the BBC website piece does not miss out a word from the quote.
In fact the passage you refer to is not a quote, it is a bit of reported speech cobbled together from quotes.
This is clear as I bet TB would try not to use the phrase “Islamic extremist” – it is regarded as un-PC by Muslims particularly.
Ah the joy of conspiracy theories
Dammit anonymous, is there any point me posting?
Yes ‘Rod’, there is – from you it comes from the horse’s mouth (a.k.a. the telly-taxpayer’s trough), whereas ‘anonymous’ apparenty has some other professional reason for contributing here.
Decent report by Bernard Gabony
South Asia editor, BBC News website (tucked away in the South East Asia section)
Religious extremism in Pakistan
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4679563.stm
dan
Good link to Stephen Pollard’s piece, and what a sophisticated response from Peter Marshall, Newsnight correspondent, when pinned down.
What is plain is that the BBC is wilfully acting with our enemies’ interests in mind. It is a wholly disredited news organisation.
I can’t withold my money over this, I haven’t had a licence in years. I just will not give a single damned penny to a bunch of leftists who hate my country and shill for its enemies.
Rod Bishop
My apologies, I had no idea that Leeds wasn`t in the midlands.
What I can tell you is that if its North of Harrods its sure to be Lower class, blue collar, pie `n chips and pretty darned fond of old school socialism.
“Bus man may have seen _ _ _ _ _ _ _”
here’s some fun, you can change the bbc website text just by clicking. Click the title and watch the text change….it’s magic!
http://news.google.co.uk/news?hl=en&lr=&tab=wn&ie=UTF-8&q=source%3Abbc_news+bus+man+may+have+seen+terrorist&btnG=Search+News
Why would I need a professional reason for commenting here?
If you don’t need a professional reason for criticising the BBC, why would I need one defend it?
“However, we will not report mere rumour and nor will we run casualty figures, as the most obvious example, without being able to verify them.”
Unless it’s about Israel, but then it’s what our listeners (the Muslim world) want to hear.
Jenin Massacre anyone?
Well, Al-beeb has responded to today’s pressure, and let some ‘have their say’
Trouble with the T-word?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ifs/hi/newsid_4680000/newsid_4680100/4680125.stm
they don’t half get themselves in a twist with their wooly-liberal word bending stunts.
Quote from the NewsWatch article above:
“BBC Editorial Guidelines are advisory but editors will exercise their own judgement on a case- by-case basis.”
i.e. whether or not we (BBC staff) agree with the cause, ergo
a Palestinian blows himself and innocent Israelies up. The BBC agree with the cause, the action is ‘justified’, so they call that person a ‘militant’ or ‘insurgent’.
Common sense appeared to prevail for a few hours after the London terrorist attack with journos correctly calling a terrorist a terrorist, but now the policy has been exposed as the sham that it is. By their own admission, the BBC have a double-standard policy, skewed to their own left-wing world view, pathetically presented as a ‘case by case’ basis of whether to use the T-word.
Too many audiences to succour I think. They should remember which audience actually pays for them to exist.
They should remember which audience actually pays for them to exist.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find there are high-ups within the BBC that get a considerable kick-back from various regimes around the world in return for their services. Either that or they just want to dominate the media market at any price.
Nice seeing them squirm for the time being, hopefully it will get worse for them.
Teddy Bear,
Left wing traitors aren’t cheap (so many shiny fashionable things to buy), but the are eager workers.
“Leeds is in Yorkshire, arguably not far from the geographical middle of the country but universally recognised as being ‘oop North’…
Leeds Castle is in Kent which although very pretty is entirely unconnected with the city.”
Aha! That explains it. My first guess was ‘oop North’ (though I was thinking Lincolnshire). Obviously I should have kept reading my atlas index and not assumed the Kent ‘Leeds’ was the right one.
My knowledge of English geography is somewhat dated, (16th c. to be exact) as I learned most of it in my history courses.
Anyway it’s clear neither Leeds is in the ‘Midlands’.
Left wing traitors aren’t cheap (so many shiny fashionable things to buy), but the are eager workers.
They are cheap when you think what they’ve sold for it – and I don’t really think they’re left wing, that’s just an expeditious way of explaining their greed and lack of morality.
Rod Bishop and Anonymous
On Monday afternoon the main story on the BBC website was the Prime Minister’s statement to the House of Commons. The BBC DID cut out all his description of the bombers as terrorists and their deeds as terrorism.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4670945.stm
THAT was their main story, the main BBC website report of the statement. And even a blind man could see that the report doctored what the PM actually said.
And when you went to that page, there was NO hyperlink to the full text or to the bullet-point summary you refer to. I had to get the full text from the Guardian site – that is why I linked to the Guardian site when I posted on Monday afternoon.
Do either of you dispute this account ? Do you have evidence ?
To recap, JiL. The BBC presents a summary of Blair’s statement, in which the t word isn’t there because the summary is the BBC’s, not the PM’s exact words. Elsewhere they present it as a video, give highlights, and the full text.
But, according to you, they are censoring him. They are guilty of what, exactly?
Anonymous
No No No.
On Friday afternoon Blair’s statement was the lead story on the BBC News homepage. That story DID doctor Mr Blair’s words, excising the words terrorist and terrorism in every description of the people and their deeds. Even the headline called them bombers whereas Blair all through his statement was referring to terrorists.
The home page did NOT include any link to the full text, and did NOT include any link to the “highlights” page. The homepage DID link to a further main page – London Attacks – In Depth. And THAT page did not include links to the full text or the highlights – but had the /4670935 story on the statement as lead story.
So how can you or Rod Bishop say that BBC Online were not hiding in their LEAD story the fact that Blair was attacking terrorists and terrorism ?
You mention the link to the video clip – that is NOT what people would go to first. Indeed the main video clip that the website linked to was Andrew Marr’s report, not to the PM’s statement. The PM’s full statement on video was NOT linked to. In any event, most of the people accessing the BBC site from the UK or abroad would not have broadband service (or eg would probably not use it in a busy office) so do not usually try to see video on their PC.
This is getting more Orwellian. I KNOW what I saw on the BBC website on Monday afternoon, I KNOW how the BBC presented/distorted Blair’s statement. So please stop trying to put me in Winston’s Smith’s position where I have to deny what my own eyes told me, and which this link continues to prove :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4670945.stm
And incidentally – the other texts to which you refer have an index number far far higher than ……4670945. Which suggests even to an idiot that they were not filed at the same time or anywhere near it.
JohninLondon has an interesting point here. If we are to presume that the page index numbers are generated sequentially (which seems logical) then tabulating the index no’s against topics thus:
Report of speech 4670945 16:46 GMT
Text of speech 4673221 16:19 GMT
Howard’s speech 4673083 16:48 GMT
Would seem to show an odd discrepency.They would have had the text of the speech before they reported on it. Howard’s response should come after.
However, looking at a concurrent story as control:
Mother makes plea 4671367 13:42 GMT
for missing son.
And we find a story from 3 hours earlier with an intermediate index number.
My best bet is that the relevant pages were made up in advance with the text being inserted as it became available This could imply that there may have been another ‘Text of speech’ that has gone missing.
dogsdanglybits
The postings at the BBC website are sequential by time. Today’s stories have moved up into the 468XXXX range.
Yes they will have had the full text of Blair’s statement simultaneously with its delivery – via the Parliamentary Lobby. The full text does not appear to have been filed until a long time after the main report on the statement. I don’t think any other version went missing. Perhaps the full text was eventually added as an afterthought, when the heat was on ?
Sometimes the timings are changed as edits are made, but presumably the report number is fixed. (As we know sometimes stealth edits are made without a change to the timings)
dan
Yes, the nmber once assigned stays fixed. For example the “Bus man saw terrorist” story that was stealth-edited including the headline still carries the original index number.
As you say, stories get edited without any change to the timing. I find that very odd.
If there is a blanket ban on the word ‘terrorist’ this is not ‘bias’, simple as that. It may be stupid, imprecise etc, but it does not conform to any meaning of the word ‘bias’. If, on the other hand, certain actions by such and such were referred to as ‘terrorist’ whereas identical acts by ‘favoured’ groups were described in a different way this would be bias.
It may not be strictly bias – but it sure is stupid and weaselly.
And the grand panjandrums at the BBC need yanking down a peg or two. For their PC nonsense which is in effect bias. For their inefficiencies. And for the whole damn idea of doctoring UK news in case Johnny Foreigner overseas might get upset.