this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
171 points (93.0% liked)

News

23373 readers
2930 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Terrorism is a loaded word, which people use about an outfit they disapprove of morally. It's simply not the BBC's job to tell people who to support and who to condemn - who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.

We regularly point out that the British and other governments have condemned Hamas as a terrorist organisation, but that's their business. We also run interviews with guests and quote contributors who describe Hamas as terrorists.

The key point is that we don't say it in our voice. Our business is to present our audiences with the facts, and let them make up their own minds.

As it happens, of course, many of the people who've attacked us for not using the word terrorist have seen our pictures, heard our audio or read our stories, and made up their minds on the basis of our reporting, so it's not as though we're hiding the truth in any way - far from it.

Any reasonable person would be appalled by the kind of thing we've seen. It's perfectly reasonable to call the incidents that have occurred "atrocities", because that's exactly what they are.

No-one can possibly defend the murder of civilians, especially children and even babies - nor attacks on innocent, peace-loving people who are attending a music festival.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

There's a difference in strategy though, to make something noteworthy and newsworthy though being shocking rather then tactically significant. Should we not talk about that?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

make something noteworthy and newsworthy though being shocking

If you need to make something shocking then you're just advertising / pandering to a base. News may or may not be noteworthy/newsworthy; whether it is groundbreaking or simply pedestrian is clear in the reading. And just because something is pedestrian doesn't mean it's not interesting. Needing things to be shocking in news is like asking for every item of food to be intensely sweet, or salty, or sour. It dulls the sense to meaningful news which isn't sensationalist and ultimately makes us less aware and inquisitive.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Terrorist's absolutely use horrific acts to advertise. They can get their name out there and drum up support.

I'm taking about what the news usually is, rather than what it should be. I agree it'd be better your way, but a border skirmish won't get covered nearly as much as a massacre.

[–] 13esq 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

What's your argument?

That if terrorists do it, news outlets should too?

Imagine setting and maintaining a high bar rather than lowering it every time you get an excuse to do so.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

My argument is that terrorists have a grewsome way of getting publicity. They focus on what will be picked up by the (imperfect and sensational) news outlets and conversations. That is different than normal armies, who would focus on degrading the war fighting potential of the other side though tactical strikes on the units actually fighting.