Today, under the headline Whatever the BBC say, Britain is still mainly white, Christian and straight (has the BBC ever said the opposite?), Littlejohn proclaims:
Only this week the BBC announced it was scrapping references to AD and BC because it didn’t want to offend, or discriminate against, non-Christians.
And here, again, is what the BBC actually 'announced' 'this week' about this issue:
It is incorrect to say that the BBC has replaced date systems BC and AD with Before Common Era (BCE) and Common Era (CE). Whilst the BBC uses BC and AD like most people as standard terminology, it is possible to use different terminology, particularly as it is now commonly used in historical research. The BBC has issued no editorial guidance on date systems, and the decision rests with the individual editorial and production teams.
So: did Littlejohn know his statement was untrue, and wrote it anyway, or did he not bother to check his facts, and so wrote out of complete ignorance?
And how many more times is the Mail going repeat something that it must know is not true?
(Thanks to all who got in touch about Littlejohn's remark)
Posts
If Ivan Lewis had his way and journalists were licensed....would it rid us of the likes of Littlejohn, Liz Jones and Melanie Phillips (not to mention countless other pointless columnists masquerading as journalists?).
ReplyDeleteI would love to see them take a basic course, fail and be banned from the papers....although a daft idea it starts to have a lot of merits !
Littlejohn, as a teenager, fell in love with soul and reggae.
ReplyDeleteSurely his own past should remind him that just because someone is ethnically Caucasian, that does not mean they will fit into his idea of "white" as a *cultural concept*.
And having been born into a church, feeling a nominal affinity towards it and attending for weddings and funerals is not the same thing as actively being Christian. Actual Christians know this, and wouldn't accept as Christian many of the people the Mail is claiming as such.
I don't know if licensing would do any good at this point. Maybe some sort of cull?
ReplyDeleteI hope the BBC does stop using bc and ad only they put the blame on increased newspaper media coverage. Either that or they go all out and mention bc and ad on every show, no matter how irrelevant, just to show the papers up.
ReplyDeleteThe BBC may never have said the opposite, but Littlejohn himself sure has been at pains over the years to give the impression that the UK isn't mainly white at all any longer. So it's an interesting reversal.
ReplyDeleteLittlejohn couldn't care less whether it is true or not - he just knows how to pander to his moronic audience.
ReplyDeleteOh dear God....they've hoodwinked George carey now.
ReplyDelete"Dionysius Exiguus would be dumbfounded at the attempts by the BBC to issue guidelines that amount to ditching the well-known terms in our calendar, BC and AD."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2044172/GEORGE-CAREY-Why-letting-BBC-abandon-Year-Lord.html