Should Ch4 Have Used This Woman In A Hijab

[trt]

to front the news of the Nice massacre?

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1459893/why-did-channel-4-have-a-presenter-in-a-hijab-to-front-coverage-of-muslim-terror-in-nice/

[andy-hughes]

We can agree to differ.

[ummmm]

Andy...really? How do you cope?

[andy-hughes]

ummmm - //Andy...really? How do you cope? //

Sorry - I am confused - can you elaborate?

[Svejk]

From this thread;
fiction-factory ///Utter tripe, in my opinion///
13:51 Thu 21st Jul 2016

[ummmm]

If you found Talbot's comment offensive.

It wasn't! Far from it.

[Togo]

Infamy,Infamy, they've all got it in fer me.(^_*)

[andy-hughes]

ummmm - //If you found Talbot's comment offensive.

It wasn't! Far from it. //

Thanks for the explanation.

I am sure we (well not 'we' personally, but the site in general) have had this debate many many times -

what is deemed offensive or not is entirely in the perception of the receiver.

This extends to 'humour' and similar cultural aspects of conversation and debate.

If I choose to see a comment as offensive, then that is my right, as it is yours to see it as not.

That does not make either of correct, or incorrect - it simply means we see the same thing in different ways.

[-Talbot-]

If you removed the answer you are abusing your position.
How come FF's answer is acceptable if mine isn't?

Just to be clear ...FF your answer wouldn't bother me even if it was in answer to one of my replies.

[vetuste_ennemi]

Fiction Factory, I'll try an analogy. It's 1941 - Pearl Harbour - breaking news: 2,000 US sailors and marines dead. Don't know if TV was around generally at the time, but by way of illustrating my point: tonight's scheduled TV presenter is Michio Akimoto. Do you think that the producer of the news show (or Mr. Akimoto himself) might decide that the attack should be reported by someone who is not obviously Japanese? I think that would have been the decision, and I think it would have been the "appropriate"/sensitive" thing to do. The decision would be anticipating a likely reaction by many of the sort "The Japs have done that! And we've got a *** Jap telling us about it!". The anticipated reaction might well be ignorant, stupid, racist, or a million other things which makes ordinary people inferior to AB contributors like yourself. But it's a reaction which those of us who've mixed with crowds can understand. You of course would have made the editorial decision that Mr. Akimoto SHOULD present the item., waited for the likely reaction from the unwashed, and then lecture them on their moral deficiencies.

I think the Fatima Manji case is similar. In my invented case the presenter could have been US born, the son of immigrants who came to the US in the 1890s and in every way an exemplary US citizen. The editorial decision NOT to have him present this news item would not suggest otherwise, far less be a comment on his journalistic competence. And the same with Ms. Manji.

[andy-hughes]

Talbot - //If you removed the answer you are abusing your position.
How come FF's answer is acceptable if mine isn't?

Just to be clear ...FF your answer wouldn't bother me even if it was in answer to one of my replies. //

This is becoming a discussion of Site Rules - and as such is deviating from the thread we are on - I am not therefore willing to continue the exchange.

If you feel you have a grievance with moderation, then contacting the Ed is your best way forward.

[Ellipsis]

v_e, I can see your point ... if you consider Moslems to be "the enemy".

If instead you consider terrorists to be "the enemy" then, unless Fatima Manjia is a known terrorist or terrorist sympathiser, there's not a problem.

[Togo]

//If instead you consider terrorists to be "the enemy"//

Any ideas regarding the overwhelming ""profile" of the main perpetrators carrying out the terrorist attack on urban targets?

[andy-hughes]

Ellipsis - // v_e, I can see your point ... if you consider Moslems to be "the enemy". //

I think the analogy is flawed.

1941 was seventy-five years ago - media, together with cultural attitudes, are a million miles away from where they were back then.

In that instance, I would entirely agree that using a Japanese presenter would be insensitive - based on very 'black and white' national views on colour and race - let's not forget that condoned racism in US states was a fact of life then, and not even questioned, much less resisted as it is now.

But this is 2016, and we have a sophisticated worldwide media presence, and hopefully, a far more sophisticated television audience who are perfectly capable of avoiding a backwards kneejerk reaction to seeing a Muslim reporting about an alleged Muslim atrocity.

To suggest that they require some level of 'sensitivity' about the person who presents the news to that audience is to patronise them, and lump them in with the 'looking to be offended' minority who make up Mr McKenzie's readership.
If instead you consider terrorists to be "the enemy" then, unless Fatima Manjia is a known terrorist or terrorist sympathiser, there's not a problem.

[vetuste_ennemi]

"If you consider Moslems to be "the enemy"...If instead you consider terrorists to be "the enemy" then, unless Fatima Manjia is a known terrorist or terrorist sympathiser, there's not a problem.".

I make no such suggestion about Ms Manji at all, Ellipsis. I tried to make that point in my reply to Fiction Factory.

I don't think Muslims are "the enemy", I think their faith in its traditional form as practised by Mohammed is. Islam is a totalitarian ideology which is incompatible with Western democracy and liberal human values.

[andy-hughes]

Togo - ////If instead you consider terrorists to be "the enemy"//

Any ideas regarding the overwhelming ""profile" of the main perpetrators carrying out the terrorist attack on urban targets? //

That depends on your definition of 'profile' doesn't it.

Since. by definition, the perpetrators are terrorists, then they are the enemy.

What other 'profile' do you think is relevant?

[Ellipsis]

> Any ideas regarding the overwhelming ""profile" of the main perpetrators carrying out the terrorist attack on urban targets?

That's a non-argument, Togo.

For example, any idea of the overwhelming "profile" of serial killers? Does that make you one?

[Ellipsis]

> I don't think Muslims are "the enemy", I think their faith in its traditional form as practised by Mohammed is. Islam is a totalitarian ideology which is incompatible with Western democracy and liberal human values.

So to bring it back to the OP, what do you think?

[vetuste_ennemi]

"But this is 2016, and we have a sophisticated worldwide media presence, and hopefully, a far more sophisticated television audience who are perfectly capable of avoiding a backwards kneejerk reaction to seeing a Muslim reporting about an alleged Muslim atrocity."

It requires no level of sophistication at all, Andy, to see that Orlando, Nice St Bernadino, Charlie Hebdo etc. are atrocities which are committed by people whose inspiration is Islamic. "Allahu Akbar!" is a strong clue. If sophistication is required then it's required in explaining how the faith and the atrocity are NOT connected. Please do not repeat the standard response from the right-thinkers catechism that "they are distorting the tenets of their faith". Mohammed killed people who opposed him. This includes numerous Charlie Hebdo satirists of his day.

[vetuste_ennemi]

"So to bring it back to the OP, what do you think?".

I think she shouldn't have worn the hijab, Ellipsis. The line of "reasoning" Muslim=Islamist=terrorist mentioned at the start of the thread is a caricature of the obvious (to most of us) fact that while most Muslims are not terrorists most terrorists are Muslim.

[vetuste_ennemi]

...right-thinker's