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.

    • 9488fcea02a9@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      27
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      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

      • girlfreddyOP
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        18
        arrow-down
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        Lots of MSM corps don’t have that same self-control tho.

        Actually neither do politicians.

        • n2burns
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          13
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          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.