[Reader-list] British Biased Corporation? Terrorists in London, gunmen in Mumbai

[Aditya Raj Kaul]

British Biased Corporation? Terrorists in London, gunmen in Mumbai
*Mihir S. Sharma
<http://www.indianexpress.com/columnist/mihirsharma/>* - Indian
Express

Posted: Dec 03, 2008 at 0119 hrs IST

Link -
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/british-biased-corporation-terrorists-in-london-gunmen-in-mumbai/393560/

*New Delhi:* The BBC, attempting to appear unbiased, has laid itself open to
accusations of bias. A group of politicians in the UK's ruling Labour party
have questioned the BBC's use — or its decision to avoid using — the word
"terrorist" to describe the 10 men responsible for nearly 200 deaths in
Mumbai <http://www.indianexpress.com/special/maharashtra,%20politics/> and
calling them "gunmen" or "militants" instead.

One of them, Steve Pound, who represents the South Asian-heavy constituency
of Ealing North in the British Parliament, said in a statement released to
news agencies that it was "the worst sort of mealy-mouthed posturing."

The BBC has faced this accusation before: following the July 7, 2005
bombings of the public transport system in London, the perpetrators were
described by correspondents as "terrorists"; until, that is, reactions from
across the world that detailed how the broadcaster, seemed to be
hypocritical in calling those bus bombers in London terrorists, but people
who did an identical act in Northern Ireland or Peru "bombers" or
"militants".

Later, BBC chairman Michael Grade told BBC's Today programme that the
broadcaster should have called the July 7 bombers terrorists because they
were universally viewed as such within the corporation. BBC is state-owned
but independently run. Its guidelines say that the "terrorist" word is not
banned, but should be used "sparingly" and that a bare reporting of facts
could be a "barrier rather than an aid to understanding" and "undermine" the
news organisation's "credibility".

The ultimate decision, they say, is the editor's and the correspondent's.
Which may explain why British editors after the 7/7 attacks used the word
"terrorist" for considerably longer than they did after the attacks in
Mumbai. Since then, however, the BBC says it has been particularly
circumspect, choosing to avoid making an editorial call for as long as
possible on whether something is terrorism or not.

The report archived on the BBC website with the earliest time-stamp, in
fact, chooses to call the Mumbai attackers gunmen in most places, and
"suspected terrorists" in one — perhaps because the context of the latter is
the measures the police said they were taking to contain them. In
comparison, the BBC took several days to make the same leap after the London
terrorist attacks.

Such decisions are generally made by the London-based editorial corps; those
members of the Indian bureau as well as some London-based correspondents who
were contacted were unwilling to speak on record. The London-based BBC press
office, however, told The Indian Express: "We are not calling them freedom
fighters. We are calling them 'bombers' or 'militants'. The fact is
terrorist does not have a universal meaning. It translates as freedom
fighters in certain languages. We are not alone in not calling them
terrorists."

It also appears that the BBC's Hindi and Urdu services are much more willing
to use the word than the flagship English-language service. CNN, too, took
an early editorial call about the use of the word: the attackers are
described as "terrorists" in most archived news stories. Of course, all
major international bodies have described what happened as "terrorist"
attacks: the UN Security Council's statement called them "reprehensible acts
of terrorism".

When asked at what point the consensus that the act was terrorism and that
the actors were terrorists would become so overwhelming that choosing not to
call them so would itself act as a "barrier rather than an aid to
understanding", the BBC had no comment. A senior BBC correspondent, however,
did say that "debate rages on" within the organization. Another said the
organisation delays making the call as long as possible because it is
"naturally conservative" in such things.