I guess not strictly news - but with all of the vitriol I have seen in discussions on the Israel situation, that have boiled down to arguments over wording, I feel that this take from the BBC is worthy of some discussion.
Mods, feel free to remove if this is not newsy enough.
You misunderstand.
Proper old-school journalists, like John Simpson, won’t be quick to call someone a terrorist. They will however report on someone who called them a terrorist.
It is their job to report the facts. That means that they report what they see and what they hear. Nothing more. That is news.
Coming to the conclusion that someone is a terrorist, isn’t news. It’s analysis or opinion. Often the journalist is in no position to form an opinion either way, and it’s not really his job anyway.
The reason this sounds weird to many, is because journalism has gone down the shitter. This used to be standard. Reuters for example, is still quite rigorous in this. But most news organisations now mix factual reporting with analysis. Some ‘news’ organisations remove the news/facts entirely.
Basically, reading an article written by a good journalist, you should not be able to tell what side of the argument they are. Although this can sometimes also cause issues, like false balance.
It’s spelled “Xitter” now… as in “going down the Xitter”.