Saturday 23 December 2017

Lead stories


Here's another striking example of how different UK broadcasters prioritise different stories. Both ITV News and Sky News are leading with the following story: 

ITV's main story
Sky's main story

The BBC is leading with this:


The particularly striking thing here is that the story that leads ITV and Sky is nowhere to be seen on the BBC News website's home page, not even among the lower-ranked stories. In contrast, ITV and Sky both prominently report the BBC's lead story. (Both have made it their third-placed story). 

For some reason, the BBC has decided to downplay the San Francisco terror plot story.

2 comments:

  1. The story is there on the US and Canada section of the BBC News website of yesterday's date 22nd Dec:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42462463

    The BBC's treatment of this story is a classic example of bias by Agenda Choice. They report :

    ...Authorities say firearms, a will and a letter claiming the attack were found during a search of his home...

    .... The FBI criminal complaint says that the Muslim convert's letter made reference to Donald Trump's decision to designate Jerusalem as the capital of Israel....

    The telling part of the story is hidden via another link - 'Read the complaint in full':

    https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4335714-FBI-Terrorism-Arrest-Complaint.html

    This FBI document makes clear the facts of this case, but you wouldn't know them from the BBC coverage - without this link. Both the letter referred to (page 11), and the designation of the Foreign Terrorist Organisation (PTO) (page 3) leave no doubt as to the background and allegiance of the alleged offender.

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  2. I think the BBC find convert terrorism particularly tricky. The obvious question is "Why would a convert to this religion immediately decide that it was a religious obligation to engage in terrorism?"

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