The BBC is still at it. This must be a deliberate policy, not mere laziness or habit.
It’s at it in a story on what the Danish domestic intelligence agency knew about El-Hussein. Prison officials told them he was at risk of being radicalized. I would guess they are told that about a lot of people, and can’t closely monitor all of them.
Danish intelligence chief Jens Madsen acknowledged that El-Hussein had been “on the radar” of his services.
Mr Madsen said investigators were working on the theory that he could have been inspired by the shootings in Paris last month.
Lars Vilks told AFP news agency that police “did not step up security on Saturday. It was the same as we had previously”, confirming that he had since gone into hiding.
The cartoonist stoked controversy in 2007 by drawing pictures of the Prophet Muhammad dressed as a dog and has been under police protection since 2010.
There they are, at it again – firmly blaming Lars Vilks for drawing a cartoon that in just about any other context would be simply a cartoon, like any other. There they are again, dishonestly and damagingly saying that Lars Vilks “stoked controversy” when he simply drew a cartoon.
They really really really need to stop doing that.
“I would guess they are told that about a lot of people, and can’t closely monitor all of them.’
Yes, indeed Ophelia, it’s one of the most irritating habits of the media and its ‘opinion leaders’.
‘…the Prophet Muhammad’?? Well at least the BBC left out the “PBUH”, however it’s probably only a matter of time before it’s compulsory.
Years and years and years and years ago I worked with a lot of recently ex BBC news and media types. There was a definite culture of pro arts and anti tech and of pro ‘balance’. Every ex BBC person I knew rolled their eyes and shrugged at this, but continued to do it anyway in their new jobs as if to say they’d love to be proper journalists but their hands were tied, what could they possibly do about it? Also, they were all Nathan Barley.
I don’t know how the BBC managed to brainwash them quite so thoroughly and I’ve no idea whether the same sort of thing is going on in these cases. But it looks like that and I wouldn’t be surprised.
I don’t know how the BBC managed to brainwash them quite so thoroughly and I’ve no idea whether the same sort of thing is going on in these cases.
I think it’s part of the triumph of liberalism.
Seriously.
In many societies we manage to get people to step away from authoritarianism, which entails backing off on certainty and promoting social relativism and trying to see things from different points of view. Success!! It’s like pacifism, though – great idea until you meet someone who intends to fight you in spite of your principles. And, by then, you’ve got no useful defensive skills. We see the same thing with online bullies – they have a large number of effective tactical options available to them that the good guys aren’t going to use because the good guys feel they are immoral.
Bullying (whether by online creeps or by a major religion) is asymmetric because those who employ it are less constrained and can have disproportionate impact. What’s fascinating to me is that those who employ bullying tactics don’t realize that, by adopting those tactics they are admitting strategic defeat. After all, if the religionists could actually produce the word of god, or whatever, there wouldn’t be any disagreement to have. The same thing with online bullies – people who actually have an argument are going to be more willing to air it publicly and exchange criticism.
I’ve come to believe that these asymmetries tend to act as a sort of regressive force that pulls humanity back towards a social mean. As long as it’s an effective option to stomp on the brakes and threaten to interfere with progress, the weaker “side” has a loser’s veto. Congressional republicans have figured that much out, but they haven’t realized fully that it’s an admission of defeat.
Sorry I digressed a bit there. But, yeah, leaving yourself open to the loser’s veto is a problem that’s organic to liberalism.
This suggests that “simply drawing a cartoon” is an act always free of foreseeable consequence of any kind. It doesn’t say “deserved murder”. It doesn’t even say “asked for a slap”. It doesn’t say or imply that it provoked violence. It says he “stoked controversy”, i.e. did something he knew would provoke discussion. Is that not true?
Is it damaging to say Nick Bougas “stoked controversy” when he “simply drew a cartoon”? (The “Jew-bwa-ha-ha.gif” image). Does anyone think he drew that image thinking people would look at it for a moment and move on, without engaging in any way with its racist stereotyping?
@Marcus:
Some people argue that pacifism is a great idea anyway. A couple of names you might have heard of spring to mind.
Pacifism doesn’t imply any lack of defence or unwillingness to defend (or even to attack). Rather the reverse; historically, pacifism as a stance or movement has been largely about developing and deploying defences and attacks.
I don’t think so. Bullying – pretty much by definition – makes the targets feel bad. Most of the types of bullying I’m familiar with are in some ways about sustainability; about locking victims into situations where they’re low-hanging fruit, ripe for extra bullying.
You seem almost to be arguing that bullying makes the victims stronger because it exposes the fact that bullies exist. I’m not sure that bullies are playing a strategic game and I doubt that – whether they are or not – their strategic failure comforts their victims.
I’ve tried to understand your final paragraph but it seems as empty as your invention of a force that makes something you don’t define do something that hasn’t and can’t be measured.
@sonofroj
No it doesn’t. Great job of snipping Ophelia’s quote of context and inventing the sort of nonsense you’re accusing her of.
Ophelia seems to be talking about the fact that some people like to call expressions controversial because they themselves don’t agree with them. Drawing a cartoon isn’t automatically controversial. Ridiculing terrible ideas isn’t automatically controversial, is it? The fact that there might be consequences because some people are amazingly unreasonable doesn’t make an expression of a point of view controversial.
We provoke discussion with almost everything we say (or perhaps that’s just me). “Controversial” is rather often a euphemism for “bad”, a label used as a muted excuse for unreasonable behaviour.
I agree with what I think Ophelia is saying: news agencies shouldn’t use terms like “controversy” as though controversy is a bad thing. They shouldn’t use it as though being controversial invites violence.
More specifically, I was saying they shouldn’t say things like “The cartoonist stoked controversy” about a cartoon that to reasonable people is just a cartoon. I was also saying they especially shouldn’t do that right after someone tried to murder that cartoonist.
Yes. Right. That.
If controversy is a thing that can be cajoled back to life by stoking the ashes, who is doing the stoking? Who wants it to flare back up again? Who is vigorously poking at the embers and puffing at the bellows?
It’s not the people drawing pictures of why horrible behaviour is horrible.
Regarding “The cartoonist stoked controversy”, it’s more about tone. My complaint is the usual “unbiased” tone that the BBC adopts, which seems to be becoming standard nowadays. A huge problem of modern news media is that they consider it their mission to be unbiased, which demonstrates a complete failure at what their mission actually should be.
The problem here is that the default tone of many news outlets today is this “neutral unbiased tone”, which here has an effect of seemingly normalizing and accepting the outrageous behavior of certain people who kill cartoonists. “Stoking a controversy” implies there’s a legitimate controversy. The BBC should use less “unbiased” language and instead use much more accurate language, such as “earlier, the cartoonist drew a cartoon, which caused several unreasonable people to become unreasonably upset”. (Sorry – I’m not a writer.)