bbc

I am of course delighted that John Simpson appears to have experienced a personal epiphany, and now admits to having understood something that he apparently had failed to understand before (despite 40-odd years of war reporting and 2 insignificant daughters):

'It is that life itself is immensely valuable. Not just the lives of people who think and look and maybe worship like you and me, people who are attractive or well-educated or rich, people who are the right type of Christian or the right type of Muslim. All lives.'

A bit late for the 1/2 million Iraqi children whose lives were lost as a result of a brutal sanctions regime, under-reported, un-reported or dispassionately reported; a bit late for the 1 million-odd Iraqis whose lives have been lost as a result of the invasion - an invasion that Simpson reported with such dispassion and even-handed respect for all sides that warmongers were barely recognisable as warmongers. A bit late, too, for all those other millions (unattractive, poor, ill-educated) around the world who have been maimed, killed, starved, irradiated, or tortured as a result of policy decisions by the British Government (and others); and whose damaged or curtailed lives have been reported even-handedly, as matters of hard fact, impartially - if at all.

But still, maybe better late than never. Perhaps John Simpson would now like to ask the BBC to update his quote on their page about 'impartiality':

"During the war in Iraq, opinions were fiercely divided. Both sides were certain they were right. So, as journalists, we had to be very clear about our function. It's to give people the plain, unvarnished facts."

Or maybe not, since the quote bears no relation to reality before Simpson's epiphany either. He didn't give the facts: not unvarnished, not varnished, not at all. Nor did anyone at the BBC, except perhaps one person - and he was sacked. The war would probably not have happened if they had done so.

So... even the BBC (even!) now believes things not because the evidence points towards it, but because others believe it, or don't believe it.

Dear Ms Keen... We put the word "genocide" in inverted commas in this case because there is an international dispute about whether the killings were in fact genocide.

It doesn't even have to be driven by fear: it is just the line of least resistance, the default option.

Find me an international issue that is not in dispute. They think they are offending no-one by not committing themselves to a categorical answer. But a non-categorical answer to an issue that is categorically undisputed by anyone who has bothered to look at the evidence is not just offensive, it is wrong; and it is also judgemental - which is the very thing they think they are avoiding.

Imagine...

We put the word "Shakespeare" in inverted commas because there are some people who think he did not really exist

We put the word "democracy" in inverted commas because there are some people who think it does not apply to the United Kingdom

We put the word "sincerity" in inverted commas because some countries believe that Tony Blair has none of it...

We at the BBC strive, incidentally, to provide "fair", "accurate" and "well-researched" "reporting" in all our "news" bulletins and we do not take sides on issues that might be thought to be controversial, like whether or not "George Bush" exists.

It would be a fitting memorial to a fellow journalist that the BBC carry out some research on the likelihood or not of the Armenian genocide actually having taken place. They continue to refer to the Armenian "genocide". A genocide is a "genocide", apparently, when not all countries agree that it is a genocide (or a "genocide"?). This is what they say in their Q and A on the Armenian "genocide":

Why put "genocide" in inverted commas?

…Some countries have declared that a genocide took place, but others have resisted calls to do so.'

Which countries, I wonder?

I also can't help wondering whether, in the extremely unlikely event of a British Prime Minister recognizing that the Armenian population was targeted in a systematic and brutal fashion consistent with a policy of genocide, the fact that certain other countries dissented might become less important.

Incidentally - some countries have even resisted calls to declare that the Jewish holocaust took place. But I notice that is not enough reason for it to be referred to as a "holocaust".

How fortunate for BBC journalists that most of them are not brave men or women trying to tell an alternative version of events in difficult circumstances. How tragic for such honest and selfless journalists as Hrant Dink or Anna Politkovskaya who made very similar claims about a different minority, that they cannot expect other journalists to take up and publicise their stories to the world – even, it seems, after their death.