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.
I miss when this was the standard for news. Now most (e: major) outlets don’t even try to pretend they have no bias and instead push a subjective point. Even when I agree with the point, I don’t like it when my “news” pushes it instead of just, you know, reporting.
While us Brits love to complain about the BBC being biased (probably an actual issue for internal UK politics) its good to remember that it’s still a world leading media outlet, and one of very few that can be considered not to be push an agenda. (I imagine I can find a lot of people that can probably disagree with that too…)
Even Routers has started editorialising, and I thought they were just meant to be raw facts!
Regardless of their wording, BBC news has a super Israel bias, and they even got called out on live TV during the news for it. They are not the place for unbiased reporting of this specific issue. The UK will always pretend Israel can do no wrong because they created them.
Well yeah, but like you say that’s more of a UK thing than a BBC thing. And in any case, the BBC refraining from calling Hamas terrorists shows that they do at least have some limits on their biases, where they do have them.
Or are you biased which makes you mistakenly think the BBC is 'super' biased in favour of Israel and claim the UK 'will always pretend Israel can do no wrong'?
Well that’s good, perhaps the guy having a go at them had an effect. There was literally nothing about the first counterattack shelling by Israel when it happened and I thought it was very strange.
Well that’s good, perhaps the guy having a go at them had an effect. There was literally nothing about the first counterattack shelling by Israel when it happened and I thought it was very strange.
Pretty much all news sources are good for something, so long as it’s outside of their bias’ sphere of influence. A fully state run national news outlet can potentially give very unbiased news about events in another country - maybe even better than local news sources - so long as there isn’t some conflict of interest.
It is biased and wrong, you can see by the obvious problem in their research, like Hamas is considered terrorists by the entire western world, therefore saying that you don’t call them that because you don’t want people to tell what to think is terrorism support.
I disagree; it’s a loaded, politicized word. Even if you say that the “entire western world” considers Hamas a terrorist organization, that’s a sweeping generalization which, even if it could be called 100% true, does not represent the whole world.
Tell me the facts without giving me those loaded words. I’m smart enough to draw my own conclusions.
You’re not objectively correct, “designated as terrorist by current and former national governments, and inter-governmental organizations” - they’ve expressed an opinion. You’re taking that opinion and presenting it as objective fact.
So you say your opinion on the world is worth more than the collective opinion of like half a billion people whose democratically elected leaders see them as terrorists?
In addition to the word “adjective”, you should also look up the definition of “objective”. Because you keep digging and digging and it’s making you look silly.
You are wrong. Whether it’s because you don’t understand what is being said or you are intentionally ignoring it, what you are saying is inaccurate and factually incorrect.
Proper old-school journalists, like John Simpson, won't be quick to call someone a terrorist. They will however report on someone who called them a terrorist.
It is their job to report the facts. That means that they report what they see and what they hear. Nothing more. That is journalism.
Coming to the conclusion that someone is a terrorist, isn't news or journalism. It's analysis or opinion. Often the journalist is in no position to form an opinion either way, and it's not really his job anyway.
The reason this sounds weird to many, is because journalism has gone down the shitter. This used to be standard. Reuters for example, is still quite rigorous in this. But most news organisations now mix factual reporting with analysis. Some 'news' organisations remove the news/facts entirely. Basically, reading an article written by a good journalist, you should not be able to tell what side of the argument they are.
Eg.
Good: According to Mr. X, the apple was red and tasty. -> the journalist is simply reporting on what Mr. X said. The reader can decide if Mr. X was telling the truth.
Bad: According to Mr. X, the red apple was tasty. -> the journalist wasn't there to see if the apple was red, Mr. X could be mistaken. The reader doesn't realise that the colour of the apple was described as being red by Mr. X and can't form their own opinion on whether to believe Mr. X.
The journalist doesn't avoid mentioning the apple is allegedly red. They just make it clear that they themselves aren't saying what colour it is, as they weren't there to witness what colour it was and because their opinion doesn't matter
And I know this may sound stupid, but it helps avoid (inadvertent) bias or accusations thereof.
then in the next sentence compare The IRA to the fucking Nazis.
What? Did we read the same article? Maybe I’m suffering from a reading comprehension deficit, here, but that wasn’t my interpretation at all. Could you quote where you think they draw that comparison?
I think your confusing a current affair/today tonight with actual news programs. I channel surf from 5-7:30pm and have never heard the main news programs of 7, 9, 10, SBS, nor the ABC editorialise like that in my 38yrs on this planet. At a stretch, they play clips of articles they’ve already covered at the end with the shows theme song over the top.
I see it all the time on aca and TT. Never on the main news shows, like I said, never in my 38yrs of being alive - and for the last 15yrs I’ve been watching the news between 5-7:30 unless I’m out. I seriously think you’re conflating current affairs shows with the news. Current affairs shows are held to a different (read: lower) standards and ethics levels than that of the news. Not to say there isn’t any bias or manipulation of the viewer, but they aren’t doing it with music. That’s aca and TTs domain.
I’m almost certain I remember there being more “”“both sides are valid/we’re just being informative”“” articles about trans people more recently, but here’s an example of one from a couple years ago that was so controversial it got its own Wikipedia article: “We’re being pressured into sex by some trans women”
You claim the BBC are “suggesting that trans people are deviants who are going to ruin the moral fabric of society”, yet this is the best example you can find? Such bold claims require proof, are you sure you’re almost certain you remember the articles, or could you have read a comment parroting this narrative with no actual proof?
I literally replied to two other comments with an example. I’ve deleted the original post because I’m starting to get nasty DMs and I’m really not interested in continuing this now. Here’s the link if you want it, unless you’re just here to be a shithead, in which case fuck off: en.wikipedia.org/…/"We're_being_pressured_into_se…
That article has been edited multiple times due to an influx of complaints. A fuller timeline can be found documented in videos here: https://youtu.be/b4buJMMiwcg
The original article is based on poor premises, elevates the voices of explicitly hateful people, mislead the reader to a false conclusion that trans women are coercing lesbians into sex, platformed a known sexual-assaulter who called for the execution of all trans women. And finally the BBC also just straight up lied about if they interviewed trans people for the article.
It's genuinely a terrible piece of journalism that the BBC should be utterly ashamed of.
...On 31 May 2022, the BBC released rulings from the Head of the Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) that stated that the article was a "legitimate piece of journalism overall" but that it had breached the BBC's standards of accuracy in two ways. Firstly, the headline "gave the misleading impression that the focus of the article would be on pressure applied by trans women" when the actual article focused to an equal degree on "internalised pressure experienced by some lesbians as a result of a climate of opinion ... within the LGBT community".[5] As a result, the title of the article was changed to "The lesbians who feel pressured to have sex and relationships with trans women".[7] Secondly, the head of the ECU found that the coverage of the Get the L Out survey "did not make sufficiently clear that it lacked statistical validity". The wording of the article surrounding the survey was subsequently altered.
I'm aware of the history of the article. The original article was significantly worse, as my comment stated.
But even above that, the article still should not have seen the light of day. It was based on a terrible premise to start with. A similar article would not have been written about other marginalised groups, and if it had it would have rightly been lambasted as absurdly bigoted. The BBC does not write articles like "do people of X race commit crimes?!"
And the fact that the BBC found Lily Cade to be a worthy contributor, even after they were informed of her history of sexual assault, raises so many red flags.
Part of the problem is that when you have a significant number of news sites fueling anti-trans hate, either directly or indirectly, it all starts to blend together. Nevertheless, here’s an example from a couple years ago, though I’m almost certain I’ve seen similar articles more recently.
It was an article that implied that trans women were coercing sex from lesbians.
Now the article was based on a poor premise to start with, "Do some <people in group> do <bad thing>?" is almost always going to be "yes" because there are bad people in basically every demographic. That doesn't mean we go around writing fearmongering articles about those groups. But it gets far, far worse.
The article was based on a survey of 88 women from a group called "Get the L out", whose entire purpose is trans exclusion. So heavily sampling bias to start, to say the least. The group, and the survey, also considered things like saying that trans women are women or can be lesbians to count as "being coerced into having sex with trans women", because implying that trans women are women means that they can be lesbians means that they are within the broader dating pool of lesbians, and to them that amounts to coercing lesbians to date men. Which is obviously absurd and not what a normal person would think of when hearing "coerce into sex". So the survey was deeply misleading and not at all what the headline implied.
The second main contributor to the article was adult actress Lily Cade. Who has admitted to sexually assaulting multiple women. Which makes her an odd choice for an article about sexual assault, don't you think? These assaults were known long before the article was written, and came up with a Google search. Odd that it slipped through the BBC's rigorous editorial process. Cade also went on a rant a few days after the article was published, where she called for all trans women to be executed, and called for several named trans women to be lynched. The BBC cut her contribution with a vague message not explaining why.
The BBC also claimed to have reached out to prominent trans women who speak about sex, and claimed that nobody agreed to speak with them. Which was proven to be a lie when Chelsea Poe, a high-profile trans woman who speaks about sex and relationships, revealed that she had in fact been interviewed.
Genuinely one of the most disgustingly biased pieces of "journalism" I've ever seen.
“We know that Egypt has warned the Israelis three days prior that an event like this could happen,” Mr McCaul told reporters following a closed-door intelligence briefing on Wednesday for lawmakers about the Middle East crisis, according to AFP news agency.
An Egyptian intelligence official told the Associated Press news agency this week that Cairo had repeatedly warned the Israelis “something big” was being planned from Gaza.
On Wednesday, Mr Netanyahu described any suggestion that Israel had received a specific warning in advance of the deadly incursion as “totally fake news”.
Israel has been pounding Hamas targets in Gaza in response, while residents of the territory say they have no mains electricity after their only power station ran out of fuel.
Hamas has, meanwhile, condemned US President Joe Biden’s remarks on Tuesday saying Israel had a duty to respond to the attacks, which he called an “act of sheer evil”.
In the wake of the Hamas attack, the US announced it was moving an aircraft carrier, ships and jets to the eastern Mediterranean, and that it would also give Israel additional equipment and ammunition.
The original article contains 435 words, the summary contains 184 words. Saved 58%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
The guy has been reporting since before many of us were even born. If you can catch his show on the BBC it’s a great antidote to the sensationalized, biased reporting that passes for journalism these days.
So, basically: people performed atrocities. Are they evil? Maybe they are, maybe they aren't, the BBC has no idea whether it is evil to perform atrocities. Right.
They are saying they do not use language that makes judgement, because that is not what they do. They are a neutral reporter of what is happening in the world (ie the news).
Everyone laments that “news” has been overrun by opinion journalism that tries to influence left or right. This is what “just news” looks like.
So basically, you can’t read above a 2nd grade level.
BBC is saying they report the facts and let people make their own judgements. I know this might be hard for your biased mind to understand, but the word ‘terrorist’ has been thrown around so much it’s practically meaningless. Heck, even when it should be applied (American terrorists shooting substations), it isn’t. It’s a political term at this point, nothing more.
You’re trying to advocate for news outlets to tell us how to think instead of showing us information, which is shitty journalism for idiots.
Show the information that this was a terrorist attack, because it was. That’s an indisputable fact. Indiscriminately killing, maiming, torturing and raping civilians to spread terror. That is terrorism.
I still can’t understand why naming Hamas a terrorist group goes against their “present only the facts” view. It’s the same group that raped and killed civilians just six days ago. They posted videos of their horrid raid on the internet and plan to stream hostage executions. These are facts, it is not subjective. Isn’t this the plain definition of terrorism? Why is BBC reluctant to brand a group that performs acts of terror as terrorists? This goes for how they treated IRA stories as well. I really can’t see how this adheres to good journalism principles, unlike many people here seem to be praising. It just seems to me a weird hill to die on.
Sadly Bibi needed to drum up the hate machine for cover. And Pootie needed the distraction from Ukraine. So both sides worked together to achieve this tragedy.
No one’s blaming the citizens that were killed. A better analogy would be that staff at a club were made aware of a predator on the premises and allowed them to victimize someone.
We’re also talking about a political party that literally funded Hamas at its inception to ensure it was more successful than the moderate coalition.
Is this true? I was sure when Jeremy Corbyn criticised Israel, he was labelled as a terrorist sympathiser and anti-semite by the state media.
Just as a disclaimer, I can’t really remember and was never particularly interested in English politics at this time, so I have no opinions on Corbyn, or know if he really did make anti-semetic comments or not. I do remember the tabloid papers going wild on this, I was sure the BBC voiced this or allowed guests to voice this all the time.
Sometimes it’s not a big difference. Using several different quotes in one article, all of which use the word ‘terrorist’ or other emotionally loaded words, is a clear indication that they think he’s a terrorist whilst technically remaining ‘neutral’ because they’re only quoting rather than forming a position
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