Following on from yesterday's post, Someone else's debate...
The BBC used Twitter today to promote a new blogpost by BBC home affairs correspondent Dominic Casciani.
His piece expanded on the extraordinary remark he made in yesterday's article on the Dewsbury suicide bomber that "the UK" had held a "debate" ten years ago about whether the 7/7 terrorists were "victims" rather than "terrorists" or "criminals. (As far as I'm aware "the UK" must certainly did not hold any such debate at the time).
Here's what the BBC tweeted today:
Are westerners who go to fight for Islamic State victims or criminals? @BBCDomC discusses http://t.co/kPYN5pRjYN pic.twitter.com/BvCwHFScsG
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) June 16, 2015
Now, I think it's safe to say that a lot of people felt either astonished or furious at the BBC for even asking that question.
The response on Twitter was pretty much unanimous, saying 'Of course they are criminals and terrorists, and the BBC's a complete disgrace'.
Dominic Casciani's early response to this tidal wave of criticism was to sent out a tweet saying that his Twitter feed had been on the end of "a fine piece of trolling" (if I remember his choice of words correctly)....
....though he appears to have thought better of doing so and deleted it now.
Did he get a lot of unacceptable abuse? As this is Twitter, very probably. But, as you can see for yourselves if you skim back through his timeline today, he was also on the receiving end of an absolute torrent of non-abusive criticism from large numbers of people - most of whom gave every impression of being genuinely angry with him - and the BBC - about this.
Did it never occur to him to think that this might happen? Or is he locked in some out-of-touch BBC way of thinking which allows him to believe (a) that "the UK" really did debate whether the 7/7 terrorist were "victims" ten years ago and that (b) "the UK" needs to have that debate again now?
The fact they even think such a thing is worth discussing shows how far out of sanity they live, with no one to challenge them. I'm sure someone will claim that there was a lively debate in production meetings when coming up with this project, but there won't have been anyone who would have given Casciani and his producer a sincere explanation comparable to some of those tweets why this was wrong.
ReplyDeleteOut of morbid curiosity, I had a brief look at Victoria Derbyshire's segment about the race fraud, Rachel Dolezal. Apparently it's only her parents' "claim" that she's white, and "we don't know" if she really thinks she's black. The theme was: Is there such a thing as 'transracial', in the same way there is now 'transgender'? Can you believe that?
Her black academic guest spoke at length about how Dolezal had lived a life of "white privilege" and how it was wrong to assume the role of an oppressed black person. The American academic guest, who really was mixed race, didn't fall for Derbyshire's nonsense. Vicky Pollard (as Martin used to call her) is either a terrific actress for pretending to be sincere with the, "But we don't know...." act, or is a lunatic who should not be trusted with her own show. Or maybe the BBC lawyers made her play that game because of idiotic British libel laws making it possible for the BBC to be sued for someone saying Dalezal is a fraud without challenge.
I can't even think of an appropriate adjective for the kind of mindset that would make one think it's possible to be 'transracial'. It's as revealing of the institutional culture as Casciani's question. The vox pops were very amusing. Most of them tried to be as PC and non-judgmental as possible without actually approving, such is the public pressure never to criticize anyone's opinion or actions if they are part of a protected class or hold the approved thoughts. But at least one young man said it was a stupid question, so there may be hope for Britain yet.
Yes, it becomes increasingly clear that the BBC has lost what little grasp of reality it still had. I have just watched, with growing disbelief, the 6pm news in which a reporter urged muslims to tell him whom they blame for the latest batch of defections to IS - he got the answer he wanted: "the police". Whatever happened to free will & individual responsibility? Does it not occur to these people that the three women are the authors of their own misfortunes? Having been brought up on Existentialism, I find the Beeb's narrow determinist views very hard to take.
ReplyDeleteYes, it becomes increasingly clear that the BBC has lost what little grasp of reality it still had. I have just watched, with growing disbelief, the 6pm news in which a reporter urged muslims to tell him whom they blame for the latest batch of defections to IS - he got the answer he wanted: "the police". Whatever happened to free will & individual responsibility? Does it not occur to these people that the three women are the authors of their own misfortunes? Having been brought up on Existentialism, I find the Beeb's narrow determinist views very hard to take.
ReplyDelete"Dominic Casciani's early response to this tidal wave of criticism was to sent out a tweet saying that his Twitter feed had been on the end of "a fine piece of trolling" (if I remember his choice of words correctly)....
ReplyDelete....though he appears to have thought better of doing so and deleted it now."
To homage Winston Wolf from the directline ads... 'like it never happened'.
And like an awful lot of other blowback the BBC reaps these days.
It's like they think the internet doesn't exist.