Half the story?

Further to the previous post...

The BBC, as we've noted before, often only seems to give half the story - or, if we're being charitable, treads more carefully than most other news organisations. 

As it stands now, that BBC article about the Texas attack says:

But Garland Police Department spokesman Joe Harn said there had been no credible threats in advance, and it was not immediately clear if the shootings were related to the event.

The Daily Telegraph article says pretty much the same but adds something straight after:

Police said they had not immediately determined the identity of the two gunmen or whether they were linked to critics of the event.

Just before the shooting, a Twitter account using the name "Sharia is Light" posted about an impending attack on Texas, tweeting: “May Allah accept us as mujahideen [holy warriors]” alongside the hashtag #Texasattack.

Is the BBC just been cautious here, or are they downplaying the apparent Islamic motivation behind the attack (yet again)?

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P.S. Returning to the 'controversial' point, the BBC News website's home page also links to two videos. One (the bottom one) is the BBC's TV report on the story.

Its title tells you all you need to know about what the BBC headline writer thought was the correct angle to place on the story:

Update. (by Sue)

Very early this morning I heard Newsday’s Ugandan presenter Alan Kasujja interviewing a witness to the shooting incident. (The clip that was played in James Naughtie’s report on the Today programme came from this interview.) 

What the Today programme didn’t show was Kasujja sternly asking the witness what he was doing at the event, and was he participating?

"Sir, if I may ask, what were you doing at the event.

Yes I was.

To take part?

Sorry?

Were you taking part in it?

I was not taking part I was just going there to see what it was about. I just learned about it this morning and so I wanted to jus go there and see what was going on.

And the event itself has been variously described as controvah-shal, do you agree? (*sorry)

I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that. I mean there are obviously some things that people would take issue with what was said but for the most part the event was merely a showcase for the winning cartoon and then a speech from a couple of people as well as the cartoon’s artist.

Was it trying to make a statement of some sort? Was it - what was the pah-pus of it?

The theme of the event was freedom of expression, freedom of speech. It was certainly trying to - kind of - speak about freedom of expression so important - and wake up attacks in France that was mentioned so heavily about and so - I would say the main purpose of the event was to talk about the importance of freedom of expression and freedom of press and cartoonists.

Thank you for talking to us, student Stephen Perkins".

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You have to listen to it to hear the tone of Kasujja’s questioning, forcing the defensive and somewhat flustered replies.

However, if you listen to the later episode of BBC World Service Newsday, when a new shift of presenters came on duty, I think you’ll see that the accusatory tone was ramped up even more and a very specific, quite aggressive attitude emerged, namely that they brought it on themselves for hosting this anti-Islamization event. Different witnesses are interrogated:

Did you attend the event as a guest? What was your motivation?  Did you know that Geert Wilders was going to be there?

  

The BBC World Service is clearly arguing in favour of blasphemy laws.

* I apologise to anyone who is offended by the phonetics.