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You are here: Home / Politics / Media / “Terrorist”- A Prejudicial Term

“Terrorist”- A Prejudicial Term

by John Cole|  July 12, 20059:02 am| 15 Comments

This post is in: Media

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From the Department of Not Getting It:

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.

When people set off multiple explosions in a city and kill dozens and wound hundreds, the Beeb can be counted on to make sure we understand the perpetrator’s feelings.

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15Comments

  1. 1.

    Mr Furious

    July 12, 2005 at 9:09 am

    I think they are interested in the understanding of the audience, not the perpetrators. They are technically correct, labelling an act as terrorist might be jumping to a conclusion, but it seems like needless parsing of words. It’s a pretty logical assumption that the explosions were intended to terrorize as much, if not more than, actually do damage/inflict casualties.

  2. 2.

    Jon H

    July 12, 2005 at 9:12 am

    “When people set off multiple explosions in a city and kill dozens and wound hundreds, the Beeb can be counted on to make sure we understand the perpetrator’s feelings.”

    I imagine this policy might have something to do with a few decades of covering Northern Ireland, in which case calling either side’s paramilitaries ‘terrorists’ is likely to cause something of an uproar.

  3. 3.

    Mr Furious

    July 12, 2005 at 9:15 am

    I’m not sure I made any sense up there.

    I mean the BBC is concerned with accurately conveying the events to the audience, not conveying an understanding of the actions or motives of the perpetrators. Not issuing news with loaded terms like “terrorist” before that action has been fimly established. Once that stuff is out there, it’s out there. It’s got nothing to do with the actual perpetrators themselves, it’s just an anal avoidance of any speculation in the coverage

  4. 4.

    Mr Furious

    July 12, 2005 at 9:17 am

    Good point, Jon.

  5. 5.

    Jon H

    July 12, 2005 at 9:41 am

    BTW, I found a BBC story that uses “terrorists” in regard to terrorists: the Italian Red Brigade.

    Another thought is that the BBC has a much broader global presence than pretty much anyone else.

    Using “terrorist” could conceivably get a correspondent killed by those referred to. Especially if the ‘terrorists’ are in some way in cahoots with the government or political parties.

    The terminology used is still clear enough that the reader can draw their own conclusion, and a reader won’t be led to think it was justifiable or righteous. Nor are things minimized. They treat a bombing as a bombing, they don’t dismiss it as a few people getting hurt over a firecracker. (For an illustrative example, compare the BBC’s coverage of the bombing to the way people try to minimize the burning of Ms. Plame.)

    It’s not like the BBC is using propagandistic terminology. If they were running their coverage of the London bombing under banners saying “ANTI-IMPERIALIST STRIKE!”, there’d be a definite problem.

    (Sorry if this posted twice. I checked several times, but you know how it is with Schrodinger’s Comment…)

  6. 6.

    SomeCallMeTim

    July 12, 2005 at 9:46 am

    Given that the War on Terror has been a conceptual disaster from the get-go, in part because the WH seems to think it’s meaningful to talk about a WOT, I’m inclined to prefer over-careful language use to sloppy language use.

  7. 7.

    Jon H

    July 12, 2005 at 10:02 am

    Another problem is that “terrorist” implies that the “terrorist” is the bad guy opposed to the “good guy” authorities.

    But sometimes, the authorities are also bad guys. (Example: KLA vs. Milosevic)

    “Terrorist” can imply that the authorities hold the moral high ground, and that may not be merited.

    Then there’s the Uzbek example: “they’re not demonstrators, they’re terrorists, that’s why we had to mow them down.” Should the BBC follow the lead of the Uzbek government? Who decides?

    The BBC policy may look skewed if you’re only looking at the current example of terrorism which is most relevant to us. But if you look at it in a more global sense, covering scores of conflicts, as is the BBC’s job, the term becomes highly problematic.

    It probably is best to leave “terrorist” for cases that have had some time to be sorted out by history.

  8. 8.

    Mr Furious

    July 12, 2005 at 10:06 am

    Beeb can be counted on to make sure we understand the perpetrator’s feelings.

    I meant to mention that John is just falling prey* to the whole Rovian “liberals want therapy for terrorists” meme.

    *Falling prey or furthering? You be the judge. It’s a straw man either way.

  9. 9.

    Jon H

    July 12, 2005 at 10:14 am

    I expect the CIA and the Army War College, among others, are also quite interested in “the perpetrator’s feelings”.

    If they’re getting all their information from Fox News and other jingoistic propaganda sources, we’re in deep doo-doo.

    Also: those plans for Iraq that Rummy ignored? That were generally spot-on? I suspect they took into account the feelings and motivations of the Iraqis. Part of Rummy’s problem has been a woeful disregard for “feelings” and general socal retardation.

  10. 10.

    Al Maviva

    July 12, 2005 at 10:35 am

    Like those Irish paramilitaries who come up to you in civilian clothes, then hold you down, take a power drill with a 1″ Forstner bit to the side of your knee, and drill a hole in it? Those paramilitaries?

    Or Al Qaida’s paramilitaries who flew planes into our buildings on 9/11?

    The term paramilitary means something. Guerilla’s get protection under the Geneva Conventions. Paramilitary guerillas wear uniforms. They have a chain of command in the military sense of the term. Terrorists do not.

    And I like the implications of your argument about the good guys and bad guys – Bush and Blair are bad; Al Qaida is good – or at least we’ll withold judgment until the mass stoning, crushing under walls, and soccer stadium leg amputations begin.

  11. 11.

    Jon H

    July 12, 2005 at 10:49 am

    “And I like the implications of your argument about the good guys and bad guys – Bush and Blair are bad; Al Qaida is good – or at least we’ll withold judgment until the mass stoning, crushing under walls, and soccer stadium leg amputations begin.”

    You can take those words you’re trying to put in my mouth and shove them right up your fat, wormy ass, Al.

  12. 12.

    FredW

    July 12, 2005 at 10:53 am

    Our govenment does the opposite and seems to label every “terrorists” — as they did recently when talking about the SEAL team ambushed in Afganistan. They said they were attacked by “terrorists.”

    I’m not defending the BBC here, but when you use a word too much (and use in inaccurately) it loses its meaning. If they had said “bombers” from the beginning I’d have no problem.

  13. 13.

    Stormy70

    July 12, 2005 at 3:57 pm

    If you guys can’t call a terrorist a terrorist, then 2006 will be a cakewalk for the Republicans. A person who blows up innocent people to further their cause is a fargin terrorist, period. I don’t need to understand that person’s cause or his feelings. I will never address their greivances, because they damned their cause when they detonated their bombs. Palestians case in point. I used to care about their poverty and lack of opportunities, but now I just don’t care at all. They blew up their bridges with me.

  14. 14.

    Randolph Fritz

    July 12, 2005 at 6:50 pm

    Red Ken–Ken Livingstone, socialist mayor of London–on the other hand, called it terrorism. I expect to see an outpouring of support for the moderate left from the hawks here. To be fair to the Beeb, I don’t think the perps are actually known yet, so it’s hard to say for certain this is terrorism, though it’s likely.

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks

  1. Gay Orbit says:
    July 12, 2005 at 9:34 am

    BBC: London Bombers Not Terrorists

    Ugh.

    And John Cole writes:

    “When people set off multiple explosions in a city and kill dozens and wound hundreds, the Beeb can be counted on to make sure we understand the perpetrator’s feelings.”

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