Consider
this terrorist attack in Jerusalem Old City.
A Jewish couple walking through the Old City
with a toddler and baby in two strollers. Suddenly a Palestinian man jumps out
and stabs the man and his wife. In the attack the husband and a man who came to
their assistance were murdered and the wife badly injured. The woman managed to
run to some police nearby who killed the terrorist. An interesting detail that
provides some illuminating context is that the badly injured woman was mocked,
slapped and spat at by other Palestinians in the area.
How
would you headline this terrorist attack story?
This
is what the BBC came up with:
So
the story is about yet another Palestinian victim killed by the Jews! Even the
Islamist apologists at Al Jazeera didn't stoop so low. It’s as if the killing
of Osama Bin Laden had been headlined:
Muslim recluse shot dead, after New York attack kills thousands
There
are only two possibilities that I can see that would justify this extraordinary
headline. A terrorist was holding a gun against the head of a BBC editor in the
newsroom as he typed the headline in, or there was a disaffected BBC employee who wrote it to ruin the BBC’s
reputation only to be fired on the spot for gross negligence.
But
apparently there was no terrorist or corporate sabotage involved and no firing.
In
response to complaints the BBC changed the headline to:
Israelis killed in Old City ‘by Palestinian’
An
improvement, but notice the quotes around Palestinian, code for “lying Jews say
it’s a Palestinian; we’ll remove the quotes when Fatah confirm his
nationality”.
Under
further pressure the BBC finally settled on:
Israelis killed in Jerusalem, Palestinians banned from Old City
More
progress toward the truth, but it’s obviously impossible for the Beeb to write
about Israel without moral equivalence: poor innocent Palestinians are being
made to suffer for the actions of a lone wolf. And in contrast to their
articles on Palestinian deaths there were no emotive details such as the spitting,
mocking and slapping that the blood-soaked woman victim with a baby endured from the
ordinary Palestinians during the attack. There was also, of course, no use of
the word “terrorist” in the BBC’s final draft. Diving into the twisted
mentality of a BBC editor here for a second, I’d guess they considered the
attack a legitimate one in a liberation struggle against the Jewish colonial invaders.
Unsurprisingly,
the Israeli authorities made a strongly worded complaint arguing that the BBC’s
“unethical” reporting could incite more attacks against Israelis. Israel
expects a formal apology and is considering annulling BBC journalists’ press
cards. The only BBC response so far has been to sniff that they “identified
that the headline didn’t accurately reflect the events … so changed it [twice!] of their
own accord”.
The
BBC are gambling that the Israelis will not revoke the press cards of their
world renowned news organisation because it would make Israel look like an unsavoury
regime out to silence dissent. In this they are probably right, this time. But times change.
Though
they’d hate the comparison, the BBC has a lot in common with the Coca Cola
company. The soft drinks maker is a vast multi-national enterprise. But the value
of the Coca Cola company has little to do with its bottling plants, its 130,000 employees, or even the fabled
recipe for its fizzy product. It’s the Coca Cola brand and all it represents (currently
valued at around $80 billion) that is all important.
Likewise
the value of the BBC news operation is not in its thousands of journalists; its vast budget, its 90 year
history, or its state of the art facilities around the world. Ultimately the
only thing the BBC possesses is its reputation as an objective news supplier. This
is a surprisingly robust, but once lost it will be lost forever. None of the other
stuff will matter.
It’s
sad when you have to watch the terrible decline of a fond acquaintance of your youth
into moral degeneracy. This is how I feel about the BBC. It was always
left-wing, but it used to have some self-respect and values. But now it is just a measly
propaganda outfit. And not even a pro-British one at that. The BBC is now cheer-leading
the most depraved scum on earth. The BBC these days is the very enemy of the truth.
just about everything on the BBC contains propaganda .EastEnders is getting it first transgender actor when are the going to have a gay wedding celebrated in the Queen Vic. Is there any where in English history the Tardis can arrive at and no ethnic people are around, Its wild life programs promote the climate change scam. The audience for Question Time is pre-screened and selected for majority leftist bias,
ReplyDeleteAs you say the bias runs through everything they do like the letters in a stick of rock. Credit where credit's due they are a whole lot better at the propaganda game that the Soviets ever were.
DeleteI'm chosing Anonymous, can't be bothered to register...
DeleteAnyway, since I spend hours on end in the car eveyday, I find it particularly interesting to watch the wording evolve within the BBC news team.
If something breaks between 6-7am, it's pretty much reported as is. then, at 8am, the item has already beeen given a one or two over.
Usually, the final version which remains for the rest of the day is not finalised in its minute detail until 12pm. Fascinating to watch/listen.
It certainly proves that there is an army of spin doctors, probably superior in rank to the normal news hacks, which influence wordings & outcomes, with an agenda in mind, maliciously so.
The normal news hacks won't notice this as the edits are directed straight to their boss, so it appears as if he/she did it - at the same time showing the hacks what's required and for them to fall in line slowly to please.
Everything that the BBC produces in the form of entertainment or reports as news is modified to promote a specific political point of view, from Israel, to climate change, to homosexuality, to the current migrant (oh, dear women and children's refugee) crisis. They are still impartial though--they will always report two sides of an argument--their own and the most heavily distorted version of an opponent.
DeleteThe question to ask is "why"? Why would the BBC not wish to promote truth but rather propaganda?
Delete