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Double Standards Slipping
Great letter in today's Times from a disgruntled former BBC Chief Executive. Will Wyatt applauds the BBC's coverage of the Cartoon War, but criticises the "cultural cringe" that has come to dominate the broadcaster's website.
The BBC has a useful Culture and Society website, which allows it to fulfil its duty as a public service by providing information on the arts, history and world religions. Its coverage of Christianity is neutral enough: In the Introduction, the BBC notes that "Jesus Christ believed and taught that he was Son of God", that "Jesus claimed that he spoke with the authority of God " and that accounts of His resurrection were "put about by his believers."
Nowhere does the BBC use the tradition honorific capitalisation of pronouns referring to Christ, as we did above. The broadcaster uses plain old "his" and "he" rather than stuffy, god-bothering "His" and "He." Why indulge the idiosyncrasies of a few religious nuts?
Why indeed - until you click on the BBC's Islam page.
This time, the BBC doesn't talk about Mohammed, or even The Prophet Mohammad, as numerous UK media outlets have taken to calling the founder of Islam since the Cartoon War began. The BBC gives him his full title: Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
Indeed, every time the Prophet is mentioned in the BBC's supposedly neutral text, his name is followed with the abbreviation "(pbuh)" - as if, as Wyatt notes, "the corporation itself were Muslim."
There's no "Muslims believe" or "it was reported" in this section. Instead, the Beeb claims that "Allah is eternal, omniscient, and omnipotent... Allah has always existed and will always exist" and so on. Doubtless true, and it continues into the BBC's Life of Muhammad section too, where angelic visitations and the people's realisation that "God had chosen him as his messenger " are reported as fact.
Why these double standards? If the BBC is to indulge religions, should it not indulge all religions equally? Or if the corporation claims to have an objective and historical approach to religions, why not apply the same scepticism it applies to Christianity to Islam?
Or is Wyatt right - and the BBC has converted to Islam?
