I almost forgot to mention...
When the BBC's since-hastily-changed Editorial Guidelines banning any depiction of "the Prophet Mohammed" became widely-known just over a week ago, I found (in passing) the answer to a question I've vaguely wondered about for years.
I once did a major study of a BBC Education correspondents reports, ploughing through scores and scores of them.
Given that most of her articles had accompanying images, I began to notice that a large proportion of them used stock photos of school pupils and university students.
What was interesting about them was that they tended to feature an ethnically diverse range of children; indeed, they did so so often that I assumed there had to be an official BBC guideline stipulating that it must be done.
Well, as you can see from that now-deleted (but still cached) BBC Editorial Guidelines page, there was indeed such an editorial guideline:
When possible we should ensure a diverse range of ethnic groups is depicted in any image.
Wonder if that's been deleted too (baby with bathwater)?
I live in London and obviously don't have any problem with seeing ethnic diversity all around me. In fact, I have always liked that aspect of London - it being a kind of microcosm of the world. However, the BBC should have these sorts of guidelines in force. For one thing, it can be seen as part of enforcing a general world view which is pro-mass immigration. For all my liking of ethnically diverse London, it's obvious (at least to me) that mass immigration - running at something like 5 million per decade at the moment - is an unsustainable, dangerous and destabilising phenomenon - but of course, no one is allowed to put that point fairly on the BBC.
ReplyDeleteProof of two agendas in one piece. Nice find, Craig. At least they've dared to break the taboo about Mohammed now. You won't hear me say this very often, but I think the credit earned by this new behavior actually does nearly make up for their lying about it. Nearly.
ReplyDeleteI don't the taboo has been broken. I've never heard a rational fact-based on the BBC about Mohammed - only fibology from Karen Armstrong, religiose nonsense from Sharia promoters and ignorant or pseudo-ignorant statements from journalists.
ReplyDeleteI meant that they've shown the new CH cover in a few places now. Andrew Neil (and Portillo) even dared to say it's not meant to insult Mohammed. As for the fibs about Mohammed being the original god of multicultural tolerance and forgiveness, they should be telling it to the Muslims, not the rest of us.
DeleteWhy cannot the BBC use the term "Islam's prophet Mohammed" and thereby avoid giving offence to those of us from other creeds and none? (Silly question, innit.) I'll rephrase: "thereby implying that non-Muslims regard him as their prophet too?" The ABC (the BBC's counterpart here in Oz) also uses the BBC phrase, and the other stations follow suit,
ReplyDelete