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The BBC Discovers "Terrorism," Briefly
(Jerusalem Post) Tom Gross - For a day or so after last Thursday's multiple bomb attacks in central London, the BBC, the influential leftist daily the Guardian, and even the British-based global news agency Reuters, all seemed to suddenly discover the words "terrorism" and "terrorist." BBC executives had previously insisted that for the sake of what they call "even-handedness" terrorists should not be called terrorists. But by Friday the BBC subtly and retroactively altered its initial texts on both its British and international websites. A BBC News webpage headlined "Bus man may have seen terrorist" was suddenly changed to "Passenger believes he saw bomber." Another BBC webpage spoke of "the worst terrorist atrocity Britain has seen," until it was changed to "the worst peacetime bomb attacks Britain has seen." BBC was also quick to highlight the views of conspiracy theorists, quoting Iranian cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Emami-Kashani saying Israel was behind the London attacks.