BBC tells its staff: don’t call Qatada extremist
The BBC has told its journalists not to call Abu Qatada, the al-Qaeda preacher, an “extremist”.
Despite that background, BBC journalists were told they should not describe Qatada as an extremist. The guidance was issued at the BBC newsroom’s 9.00am editorial meeting yesterday, chaired by a senior manager, Andrew Roy.
According to notes of the meeting, seen by The Daily Telegraph, journalists were told: “Do not call him an extremist – we must call him a radical. Extremist implies a value judgment.”
The guidance was criticised by experts and MPs. Maajid Nawaz of Quilliam, a counter-extremist think tank, accused the BBC of “liberal paralysis” over Islamic extremism, saying journalists must be honest about Qatada’s record. He said: “A radical is someone who is different from the norm. An extremist is someone who promotes extreme views and actions, like killing innocents.”
James Clappison, a Conservative member of the Commons home affairs select committee, said the guidance was unjustifiable. He said: “Given the evidence about this man, it makes you wonder what you have to do for the BBC to call you an extremist.” [answer: be an Israeli who can forcefully make the case for Israel]
BBC staff were also cautioned against using library images suggesting the cleric is overweight, because he has “lost a lot of weight”.
A BBC spokesman said: “We think very carefully about the language we use. We do not ban words – the notes are a reflection of a live editorial discussion about how to report the latest developments on this story.” [yes, the BBC's coverage of the Middle East shows careful malice aforethought, and not merely carelessness -- for those who work at the BBC "thiunk very carefuly about the language" they use, as when they drop in the word "occupied" before the words, also wildly inaccurate as a description, "Palestinian land." They "think very carefully." And that is why the BBC needs to have removed from its well-pain ranks those who, in the War of Self-Defense Aagainst the Forces of Islam, play the role of domestic Lord Haw-Haws, speaking not from some distant Berlin but right from Bush House. The evidence against those who set policy, those who choose what stories to cover and which to omit, those who chose that "language so carefully," are all, and at this point wittingly, acting as apologists for Islam and reflect the Muslim worldview, most notably, but not only, in their coverage of Israel and Israel's attempts to resist the never-ending Jihad against it].
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