The BBC : starting a kerfuffle about words

[qlangley]

Yet again the BBC made the faux pas this morning of allowing a
journalist to insert his own bias into the Today programme. The
offending phrase was "the war against Iraq". No, he didn't refer to the
estimated one million Iraqis butchered by Saddam, but the war which
Iraq's allies waged to remove Saddam from power and introduce
democracy. The neutral phrase would have been "the war in Iraq" or
simply "the Iraq war". If the BBC wished to be infected with truth it
might have used "the war FOR Iraq".

Don't bother writing to tell me that you think the BBC's phrase is fair
enough. That is your political stance, and you are as entitled to it as
I am to mine. But the BBC is NOT entitled to take a political stance.
It is obligated to be neutral.

Check out my website and blog: www.quentinlangley.net

[John Fallhammer]

Post by qlangley
Yet again the BBC made the faux pas this morning of allowing a
journalist to insert his own bias into the Today programme. The
offending phrase was "the war against Iraq". No, he didn't refer to the
estimated one million Iraqis butchered by Saddam, but the war which
Iraq's allies waged to remove Saddam from power and introduce
democracy. The neutral phrase would have been "the war in Iraq" or
simply "the Iraq war". If the BBC wished to be infected with truth it
might have used "the war FOR Iraq".

Like it or not, the Hussein regime was the legal, internationally
recognised government of Iraq. The war against the regime _was_, by any
definition used by professionals, a war against Iraq. That is the
neutral position.

Post by qlangley
Don't bother writing to tell me that you think the BBC's phrase is fair
enough.

If you don't want to hear that, then don't post your nitpicky green-ink
drivelings onto Usenet, you sad little man.

You are a bore. Please go away.

[nemo]

Post by John Fallhammer

Post by qlangley
Yet again the BBC made the faux pas this morning of allowing a
journalist to insert his own bias into the Today programme. The
offending phrase was "the war against Iraq". No, he didn't refer to the
estimated one million Iraqis butchered by Saddam, but the war which
Iraq's allies waged to remove Saddam from power and introduce
democracy. The neutral phrase would have been "the war in Iraq" or
simply "the Iraq war". If the BBC wished to be infected with truth it
might have used "the war FOR Iraq".

Like it or not, the Hussein regime was the legal, internationally
recognised government of Iraq. The war against the regime _was_, by any
definition used by professionals, a war against Iraq. That is the
neutral position.

Post by qlangley
Don't bother writing to tell me that you think the BBC's phrase is fair
enough.

If you don't want to hear that, then don't post your nitpicky green-ink
drivelings onto Usenet, you sad little man.
You are a bore. Please go away.

No. Good point. The BBC has always shown pro-Government bias.

It wasn't all that long ago that the Beeb *always* used to refer to groups
and organisations that the Government didn't like as "self-styled" - a truly
daft and redundant expression because what organisation does not choose a
name for itself when it is founded? The Labour Party is self-styled; the BBC
is self-styled . . . .

It's just a nasty, mealy-mouthed phrase used in an attempt to convince the
public that these organisations are insignificant and worthy of ridicule.

And when the US was supporting the most heinous groups of terrorists in
South America, the Beeb always called them freedom fighters, forgot to
report their atrocities and when the Nicaraguan elections came around,
completely forgot to mention that the Sandanistas were the democratically
elected government, and were the first to bring in education for the masses,
land rights, and measures to combat poverty. They never missed an
opportunity to call them left-wing though.

Oh yes, and the fact that the US' idea of joining all the opposition parties
together, including the bastard Contras, to obtain a majority against the
Sandanistas was a totally corrupt and undemocratic scam completely passed
the BBC by. They described it as if they thought it was the most perfectly
normal thing in the world!

Ditto with food irradiation. BBC2 put on a programme hopelessly biased in
favour which used every psychological trick in the book to persuade the
public that irradiated food was OK.

A little later, dear old Channel 4 put out a programme giving both sides of
the argument and allowing us to make up our own minds.

What I'd really like to know is: Was the Nina Hussein regime legal and was
she entitled to lose that kid a place in the final of Hard Spell by saying
Kerfoffle for Kerfuffle?

And don't forget, her book, "The Nina Hussein Book of Mispronunciations" is
still available for £15.99 at all main Paste Officers!

And the binding is of leather made from the hides of horsers.

[Des]

Post by qlangley
Yet again the BBC made the faux pas this morning of allowing a
journalist to insert his own bias into the Today programme. The
offending phrase was "the war against Iraq". No, he didn't refer to the
estimated one million Iraqis butchered by Saddam, but the war which
Iraq's allies waged to remove Saddam from power and introduce
democracy. The neutral phrase would have been "the war in Iraq" or
simply "the Iraq war". If the BBC wished to be infected with truth it
might have used "the war FOR Iraq".
Don't bother writing to tell me that you think the BBC's phrase is fair
enough.

That's another democratic decision made for us then.

Des.