THE BBC has told its reporters not to use the word “kidnapped” when describing the US government’s allegedly illegal abduction of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
The directive was revealed by The National contributor Owen Jones, who said it had been passed to him by a member of BBC staff.
The BBC did report on a UN commission saying that Israel committed genocide. Here’s the headline:
As for the “Hamas-run health ministry”, Hamas of course is not the government of all of Palestine. Some people might think the health ministry in Gaza is run by the Palestinian Authority, so the BBC is making clear that it’s Hamas who runs it.
In the article I just linked to, the BBC refers to October 7th as “the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks”, not as a “massacre”. I don’t know whether other articles use the word “massacre”. As for “resistance”, I’m not sure that killing civilians is a justified act of “resistance”. Surely it is wrong to kill any civilian, whether they are Palestinian, or Israeli, or any nationality. Of course Palestine has faced conditions they shouldn’t have faced (Israel shouldn’t be blockading Gaza, Israel should recognise Palestinian statehood with the Palestinian Authority leading it), but I don’t think the right answer to that is killing civilians.
Anyway I originally just wanted to explain why the BBC doesn’t condemn events in the news; they try to not morally judge the news they are reporting on. They might not always get it right though.