Tom Gross has several bones to pick with the BBC. Among them:
* According to foreign editor Jon Williams, the BBC refuses on principle to describe Cpl. Gilad Shalit (pictured) as “kidnapped,” preferring to use the more neutral term, “captured:”
Our credibility is undermined by the careless use of words which carry value judgments. Our job is to remain objective. By doing so, I hope we allow our audiences on radio and television to make their own assessment of the story. So we try to stick to the facts. Civilians are ‘kidnapped’; Cpl Shalit was ‘captured’. Since troops don’t usually make ‘arrests’, the politicians were ‘detained’. Doubtless some will disagree. But that’s, in essence, the heart of the story.
* In a profile of Walid al-Houdaly, whose wife is imprisoned in Israel, the BBC omitted some key information: namely that she was a member of Islamic Jihad who tried to detonate a car bomb in Jerusalem.
* Gross also links to a comprehensive critique in Prospect by Michael Gove and Mark Tooley further indicting the BBC’s Mideast coverage.
