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Thursday, July 07, 2005

Reuters: You are not a terrorist if you attack Jews or Americans

More than once, Reuters seems to have broken with their "impartial" tradition of not describing terror attacks as such:
:
"US officials reacted with little public fanfare to the terrorist attacks in London on Thursday"
"
after a series of explosions hit London's transport network in an apparent terror attack. ..."
"
as dealers calculated the potential economic fall-out from terror attacks in central London. ... "

Well, it didn't take long for Reuters to show its hypocrisy. It even quotes Blair calling it a terrorist attack without putting it in scare quotes.

Remember - 9/11 was never described by Reuters as a terrorist attack.

Here was Reuters' policy in the wake of 9/11:

" Throughout this difficult time we have strictly adhered to our 150-year-old tradition of factual, unbiased reporting and upheld our long-standing policy against the use of emotive terms, including the words 'terrorist' or 'freedom fighter'. We do not characterise the subjects of news stories but instead report their actions, identity or background. As a global news organisation, the world relies on our journalists to provide accurate accounts of events as they occur, wherever they occur, so that individuals, organisations and governments can make their own decisions based on the facts."

Apparently, the Reuters style manual only applies if the victims are Jews or Americans.