Some don't think the Danny Cohen story is an important one though...
Daft Times story that BBC execs organised a protest letter. Why the hell shouldn't they? Hurting BBC would hurt UK. http://t.co/NWTfKLHdZn
— Jeremy Bowen (@BowenBBC) July 16, 2015
The bit about the BBC Press Office initially claiming it had nothing to do with such BBC execs seems to have bypassed the BBC's Middle East editor, doesn't it?
Wonder how long before the BBC catches up with this news - and how will it present it?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/07/chattanooga-jihad-murderer-muhammad-youssef-abdulazeez
Will be interesting to see if it devotes as many journos to this story as it has done to Police shootings in the USA.
Quite.
DeleteI was watching this. ITV News published the gunman's name just before 20:45, around the same time as Sky News. BBC News published his name at 21:35 precisely - nearly an hour later.
This is a familiar pattern.
Checking the latest updates, Sky has his name just underneath its main headline in large print; the BBC has it in its fifth paragraph.
Really, the BBC website has excelled itself now.
DeleteThe headline under the US and Canada section is "no terrorism link"
Then the headline on the link below is:
"Chattanooga shootings: FBI sees no terrorism link"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-33562479
However, when you read the story it indicates that what the FBI actually said was that the perpetrator had no "KNOWN" links to "INTERNATIONAL" terrorism.
We are still dealing with a terrorism incident. But no - not according to the BBC!
The whole article could have been written by a PC Analysis app.
All the usual tropes are there: he was a "good boy" neighbours say. He is described as a "lone wolf". His motive is "unclear". Only at the end of the article do they throw in all the tell tale signs of "Muslim as victim" statements, appeals to Allah etc.
Any proper journalist writing the story would begin with pointing out that many such attacks have been carried out by isolated Jihadists who have some tenuous links with international Islamic terror organisations. Moreover, such attacks are often carried out by devout believers and regular attenders at Mosques.
You're quite right. That's really not good enough from the BBC.
DeleteThe article is still (at 22.12) persisting with that "FBI sees no terrorism link" headline while, now in the first paragraph below the photo of the smiling killer, the article adds the bit about him having "no known links to INTERNATIONAL terrorism".
It's absurd that they haven't even changed that headline for over 8 hours now, even though it's seriously misleading.
At midnight tonight, Sky News has "Chattanooga Gunman's Middle East Trips Probed: Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez spent approximately seven months in Jordan in 2014, the Wall Street Journal reports" as its 4th-placed main story.
DeleteThe BBC News website, in contrast, has moved on already. The story has completely vanished from their home page.
As usual with these things, the BBC is simply doing the sensible thing and waiting for all the fact to come in before publishing. I mean, don't you hate it when the BBC leaps to a conclusion and says it was a Muslim doing violence in the name of Islam before knowing all the facts?
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, when it's a white American doing it.....
There can be few BBC howlers not improved by a subsequent BBC staffer tweet wondering what all the fuss is about. Especially a Jezza. Surprised JonDon hasn't weighed in too.
ReplyDeleteAll this now needs is Dianne Abbott rolling her eyes and sighing on DP to really show how well and truly the BBC is nailed on this one.
The BBC Press Office, who recently reacted to John Whittingdale's appointment with an attempted smear (which was quickly removed, and lied about), did what it always does, and lied.
That is not daft. That is serious. And a bent BBC hurts the country it supposedly speaks for.
They really seem to be excelling at making what was bad a whole lot worse.
ReplyDeleteIn the obsession with navel gazing, we have Mishal putting Sir David on the spot, and Evan putting James Purnell on the spot, on the same topic, in the near identical way.
Whether this was an outbreak of professional integrity, the set-up for a 'see, we're balanced' or something else, who knows?
But whatever it was... is... will be.. they all blew it.
At least Evan danced the dance with James, and no sound bites were acquired before skateboarding turtles beckoned.
Sadly Sir Dave was less resistant, and we now have it that BBC senior management and/or BBC Press Office either can't get their stories straight on anything, or simply lie through their teeth as that seems the safest default to opt for.
Unique. Not worth a penny of my hard-earned.
Oh, and I see two new FoI's on this very topic have indeed gone in.
And they are very well phrased. Worth the follow.
I haven't had time to follow this, but has Humphrys had a chance at the mic on this? Seeing as how some see him as the man who made "Incurious George" Entwistle step down, you'd think they'd see him as the only one (apart from Andrew Neil! Andrew Neil!, of course) with any sort of 'independent' integrity to deal with it.
Delete"Hurting the BBC would hurt the UK " ! You could not parody it .
ReplyDelete