Saturday 23 July 2016

A confusing picture


The main headline on the BBC News website at the moment is: 


The BBC is quoting a comment from the German police there. 

The article continues:


We read in the 7th paragraph that:


..and in the 16th paragraph that:


(We don't, however, read that he apparently shouted that at people calling him a "****ing Turk" and a "****ing foreigner").

In the next paragraph we read a witness claim that:


Readers who haven't been following the news might well have been assuming by this stage that the killer was another Breivik.

In the 20th paragraph, however, we learn something that suggests he might not be a far-right German white supremacist after all: 


...and most other news sites have been reporting for some time now that the gunman's name is Ali David Sonboly.

The motives of the German police for making the Breivik connection here will doubtless come under close scrutiny at time passes. The motives of the BBC for seizing on such a comment and making it their main online headline are also open to question, especially as the connection appears to be tenuous (the date? the apparent interest in guns?).

3 comments:

  1. I am pretty sure the BBC announced the name of Jo Cox's alleged killer before the police did officially - using some formula like "but has been named locally as..." The name is all over other websites. We also have the information that he shouted "Allahu Akbar" or whatever the phrase is...

    It's very confusing, he might well be a lone psycho. But equally we don't know at this stage whether he might have as IS claim connections with them.

    May I add this hasn't been the German Police's finest hour. The place was surrounded by armed officers and there he was wandering around on the roof for ages, all alone. Meanwhile the Police were putting out confusing and contradictory info.

    Public trust in them must have declined even further than it did on 1st Jan this year in Cologne.

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    Replies
    1. The BBC's article from the day of Jo Cox's murder shows the use of that very phrase.

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-36550304

      They are really going out of their way to avoid reporting the name today. All the newspaper websites, even the Guardian and Independent, have been reporting for ages (though the Independent originally got into trouble with its readers for calling him 'David S' in its headline whilst calling him 'Ali David Sonboly' in the body of its article). That said, the Sky website isn't reporting it either.

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  2. Even more interesting given the BBC's attempt to anglicise his name, so to detract from his Islamic cultural background.

    The BBC seems to have no interest in vital journalistic questions like "Where the hell did he get a Glock pistol with 300 rounds of ammunition?". "Why did it take the Police so long to shoot him given he was just wandering around by himself on a car park rooftop for many minutes? " "Where did he learn to fire like that?"

    ReplyDelete

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