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Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

theguardian.com

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Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#371

Post by sillywalk »

tareqak wrote: post #291
gruez wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/bbc-impartiality-trust-isra ... The tagline is "As many question BBC’s coverage, three academics tell openDemocracy why they don't think the broadcaster is impartial", which I think sums up the article accurately. That doesn't seem to add much aside from proving that there are outsiders (impartial or biased, we don't really know) that agree with one side. It shouldn't be surprising…

> However, 1 death = 1 coverage is clearly not how anyone expect the media should operate. How often should the media report deaths? Each time a group of people die? Each time bodies are found? > How many people die in civil wars in Sudan or Congo, compared to how much coverage are they getting? Does that mean the BBC has a anti-Sudan bias? Are you familiar with the saying, “when a tree falls in the forest and there…

> Where are the BBC reporters in Gaza?

Israel doesn't allow reporters in Gaza, and has systematically murdered the ones who were there.

Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#372

Post by _DeadFred_ »

dvdplm wrote: post #267
ithkuil wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it's hard to define words. Surely terrorism has this vague meaning of doing very evil and violent things. But a picked up a random dictionary and it says: "the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims". I struggle to understand what political aim Israel is pursuing when using unlawful violence and intimidation. If you believe that Israel is perf…

Sadism for some, sure. For most IDF personnel I guess it’s more about “operational expediency”: if the population is terrified they’ll listen to your evacuation orders and show up to your aid distribution/killing fields on time. Finding terrorists one by one is hard work; tossing a bomb on a whole building is quicker and safer. Terror is just a tool in the end.

War sucks and soldiers don't want to die. As true today as it has been since forever. My grandfather a Marine in the Pacific used to call in flamethrowers instead of going in after Japanese soldiers in bunkers. Helped burn people alive. Was a burden he carried the rest of his life. War sucks. It sucks young men are put in these situations making these kinds of calls.

Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#373

Post by tareqak »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #366
tareqak wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, 1 death = 1 coverage is clearly not how anyone expect the media should operate. How often should the media report deaths? Each time a group of people die? Each time bodies are found? > How many people die in civil wars in Sudan or Congo, compared to how much coverage are they getting? Does that mean the BBC has a anti-Sudan bias? Are you familiar with the saying, “when a tree falls in the forest and there…

A European news agency reporting more about a war in Europe than a war outside Europe is relevance bias, not a pro-Israel bias. I get more weather reports for my state than for outside it. That isn't a bias against the weather in Mexico by my local news.

I would agree with you if the BBC simply chose to not report any news on the Israel/Palestine conflict.

However, as luck would have it, the BBC published 3 separate pieces of news about Israel/Palestine today.

1. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1mz8gxzg82o

2. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8rp31lk7mzo

3. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2k14n9d8y9o

I’ve read all three articles, and I skimmed them again quickly to verify that none of the three mention that “At least 78 Palestinians have been killed since the morning” like Al Jazeera does (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2025/7/8/live-israel...).

If the BBC is willing to publish 3 separate articles about recent developments in the Israel/Palestine conflict in the same day, then why does the BBC not also report the casualties of said conflict that happened on said day? Not even breaking news with reports of unknown casualties. Just nothing about it and no indication of anything having happened at all.

Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#374

Post by philosopher1234 »

rich_sasha wrote: post #260

Offending or over-accusing sides of this conflict is a very asymmetric risk. Misrepresent Palestinians negatively and you may eventually get an angry, vague letter - with a quarter of signatories doing so anonymously. Misrepresent Israelis negatively and you get very powerful and well-organised protests. BBC is sadly doing the rational thing of staying clear of suggesting Israel may be doing some bad things. It is a…

What has surprise got to do with it?

Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#375

Post by [deleted] »

tareqak wrote: post #373
_DeadFred_ wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A European news agency reporting more about a war in Europe than a war outside Europe is relevance bias, not a pro-Israel bias. I get more weather reports for my state than for outside it. That isn't a bias against the weather in Mexico by my local news.

I would agree with you if the BBC simply chose to not report any news on the Israel/Palestine conflict. However, as luck would have it, the BBC published 3 separate pieces of news about Israel/Palestine today. 1. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1mz8gxzg82o 2. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8rp31lk7mzo 3. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2k14n9d8y9o I’ve read all three articles, and I skimmed them again quick…

[deleted]

Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#376

Post by burnt-resistor »

djkivi wrote: post #103
Avicebron wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could just be cyclic? 1776->1861 (romanticism leading into civil war), 1861->1940 (modernism leading into WWII), [weird cold war baby boomer era of prosperity] 1970->2025 (post-modernism leading into..)

See the Fourth Turning!

- Strauss & Howe. Exactly

Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#377

Post by burnt-resistor »

somenameforme wrote: post #161
hliyan wrote: post #28

I'm starting to realize, very belatedly in life, that we suffer from an end-of-history illusion in politics and political economy. I used to think we live in a golden age because a hundred years ago, democracy broadly replaced monarchies, market economies replaced feudalism and other coercive systems, and with it went many of the old, indirect mechanisms of subjugating large populations (e.g. moral imperatives throug…

For more on this exact topic I strongly recommend Plato's "The Republic". The entire book is phenomenal, but "book" (chapter) 8 [1] is something that just completely reshaped my world view. There is an occasional reference that will make you think we've genuinely made progress, like casual acceptance of slavery, but when one reads just the political timelines and transitions he speaks of, he sounds like he's describi…

The myth of social progress conflated with technological advancement. Even that isn't assured when corruption, apathy, and cult of insane beliefs defund the "Library of Alexandria" and the world slips back into relative darkness again.

Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#378

Post by burnt-resistor »

tim333 wrote: post #343
somenameforme wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For more on this exact topic I strongly recommend Plato's "The Republic". The entire book is phenomenal, but "book" (chapter) 8 [1] is something that just completely reshaped my world view. There is an occasional reference that will make you think we've genuinely made progress, like casual acceptance of slavery, but when one reads just the political timelines and transitions he speaks of, he sounds like he's describi…

I agree human nature hasn't really changed since Plato's time and technology is the main thing that has. But the tech provides much more information and communication which leads to things like slavery going. Also I think most people are shocked that trench warfare is still going on but the Russian leadership seems a bit behind the times. Apparently Putin spent time during the lockdown reading previous centuries hist…

It cannot happen in even 1000 years because it would need evolutionary pressures to select for saner and more intelligent people. The idiocracy ain't going to let the happen.

Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#379

Post by jhanschoo »

ithkuil wrote: post #289
parineum wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traffic laws are enforced by violence and intimidation.

If any form of coercion and prevarication is labeled terrorism we then lack a word to describe the act of plowing through a crowd with a truck or planting a bomb in an everyday place with the intention of instilling terror in the population. Those acts are different from military occupation or apartheid or genocide. It's not a judgement of value. It's a description of a method. My point is that the word "terrorism" t…

Make no mistake, occupiers can and frequently will use terror tactics.

They don't plow through a crowd with a truck or plant a bomb in an everyday place because they don't need to do that to instill terror, those are tactics of the weak. No, they disappear the people around you, with the same aim, and from a position of power. Which is the greater terror? A truck that detonated downtown or knowing a relative that got killed, locked up, or tortured? Apartheid and genocide are worse terrors than that, and by a stronger oppressor.

Many Palestinians in the West Bank have to pass through military checkpoints daily just to go about their daily lives, and at every point, one wonders if it is on that day that their life goes sideways.

Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#380

Post by burnt-resistor »

ANewFormation wrote: post #368
tim333 wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree human nature hasn't really changed since Plato's time and technology is the main thing that has. But the tech provides much more information and communication which leads to things like slavery going. Also I think most people are shocked that trench warfare is still going on but the Russian leadership seems a bit behind the times. Apparently Putin spent time during the lockdown reading previous centuries hist…

Russia is neither forcibly conscripting nor are they preventing anyone from leaving the country should they wish. Ukraine is doing both at an increasingly absurd scale, all the while people wave their flag-of-the-week in their social media profile, either aloof of what they support or seeing no problem with it. The same was probably, more or less the same, during slavery. People adopting views based on tribe rather t…

Totally wrong. Are you a Russian bot or simply ill-informed, unserious human talking out of your posterior?

Russia doesn't give out passports to men until they've fulfilled military requirements. Please inform yourself.

https://youtube.com/channel/UC9HHZMXng9reLBQmNc1Y8iA

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