BBC Newspeak

[Kevin Robert Dean]

 http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=86965
 BBC staff are told not to call Israeli killings
'assassination'
 By Robert Fisk, Middle East Correspondent
 04 August 2001
 In a major surrender to Israeli diplomatic pressure,
BBC officials in London
 have banned their staff in Britain and the Middle
East from referring to
 Israel's policy of murdering its guerrilla opponents
as "assassination". BBC
 reporters have been told that in future they are to
use Israel's own
 euphemism for the murders, calling them "targeted
killings".
 
 BBC journalists were astonished that the assignments
editor, Malcolm
 Downing, should have sent out the memorandum to
staff, stating that the word
 "assassinations" "should only be used for
high-profile political
 assassinations". There were, Mr Downing said, "lots
of other words for
 death".
 
 Up to 60 Palestinian activists – and numerous
civilians, including two
 children killed last week – have been gunned down
by Israeli death squads or
 missile-firing Israeli helicopter pilots. The White
House has gently chided
 Israel about these attacks, but already this week the
BBC has been using the
 phrase "targeted attacks" for the policy of murder.
The Palestinian killing
 of Israelis, however, is regularly referred to –
accurately – as "murder" or
 "assassination".
 
 Mr Downing's memorandum suggests that the murder of a
leading Israeli – the
 late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, killed by an
Israeli extremist – is
 worthy of the word "assassination" while the killing
of Palestinians is not.
 
 The memo apparently says that "assassination" can
only be used "sparingly"
 and with "attribution". The ban resulted from a
discussion between Mr
 Downing and Vin Ray, deputy head of newsgathering at
BBC World TV. Israeli
 diplomats have been lunching with BBC officials and
complaining that the
 corporation's coverage was anti-Israeli and
pro-Palestinian.
 
 The Israeli murder campaign is, in fact, far from
"targeted". In the first
 such killings, two middle-aged Palestinian women were
killed. After the
 initial reporting of the incident, the BBC dropped
all reference to the
 female victims.
 

=====
Kevin Dean
Buffalo, NY
ICQ: 8616001
http://www.yaysoft.com

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