Biased BBC alerts me to comments by the BBC's Mark Thompson that:
'...the broadcaster would never mock Mohammed like it mocks Jesus. He justified the astonishing admission of religious bias by suggesting that mocking Mohammed might have the “emotional force” of “grotesque child pornography”. But Jesus is fair game because, he said, Christianity has broad shoulders and fewer ties to ethnicity. 'Should it be the business of the state broadcaster, funded by a levy on every household, to mock any religion?
I can understand some of Thompson's concerns about threats or violence, but:
ReplyDelete1 - The BBC (especially Thompson) is extremely well paid to deliver dispassionate, accurate, impartial news.
2 - If the BBC continually self-censors in order not to offend people who might otherwise offer violence, then the BBC is pushing a biased story - propaganda.
Thompson must surely be aware of this or he is deluding himself; either way he should resign as he has pretty much admitted BBC programming cannot be trusted.
3 - The BBC won't scrutinise Islam when criticism appears justified, but will run good stories about Islam? Why not be consistent and either run all stories factually, or ignore them all?
Favoured BBC policy for a minority group which frightens Thompson isn't the sign of an independent mind, but simply cowardice and dereliction of duty - trying to make out the BBC is cool and diverse, when it is anything but.