Comments on: Three Little Pigs

By: G. Tingey

G. Tingey — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:46:51 +0000

However, it is only too likely to be true.

If you factually describe islam as misogynist, medieaval, intolerant and cruel (see appropriate surahs for confirmation) then you will be branded a “Racist” and banned from commenting, in at least one well-known and supposedly “quality” newspaper, that falsly claims that “Comment is Free.”

By: Adam

Adam — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 14:16:39 +0000

Monitor, I think the opening line of the story is untrue, the one that says “A story based on the Three Little Pigs has been rejected by a government quango in case it offends Muslims”.

Whether or not one or two judges made some comments in which Muslims were mentioned (and bear in mind there were 70 judges, so if one or two judges made comments along this line it hardly makes it the majority view of Becta), there is no evidence that any of them seriously thought that the book should be rejected because it was likely to cause offence. I note 2 things here: first, only very brief quotes are given. Journalists are masters at twisting meanings by giving quotes out of context. Second, none of the comments about Muslims is attributed to an individual person, which makes it impossible to check the accuracy of the quotes. And more importantly, it means that if the quotes are completely made up, it means that no specific person is in a position to sue the Telegraph for being misquoted.

By: GagWatch » Shoo, little pig

GagWatch » Shoo, little pig — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 22:08:10 +0000

[...] to the Daily Telegraph (via): Muslims criticised Becta’s response and insisted that a computer program based on the [...]

By: Monitor

Monitor — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:50:33 +0000

Adam, which part of this story do you think is untrue?

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:35:43 +0000

Well, if it says so in the Telegraph it must be true!

By: Colin

Colin — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:04:52 +0000

Adam, read the telegraph version, this gives details of how muslims were brought into the issue.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=RTL4EVU2FMSRDQFIQMFCFGGAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2008/01/24/ntales124.xml

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 11:00:07 +0000

Actually, the really odd thing is that the BBC have stooped to this level. You expect to read tosh like this in the Mail or the Express. I didn’t expect to read it on the BBC website. It’s rather shaken my faith in them.

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 22:11:53 +0000

seems that no 5 has it right. The facts don’t appear to have got in the way of a good story here. The odd thing here is that the complaining entrant failed to be shortlisted for an award and then seems to be unhappy.Perhaps that is not so odd after all

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 19:25:07 +0000

The item on the Becta website is a press release – and it reads as if it’s a response to the BBC article. It looks a tad defensive. It’s clearly not a free-standing neutral statement about the award, so the fact that ‘offensive to Muslims’ isn’t mentioned doesn’t mean that wasn’t among the reasons.

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:52:02 +0000

As far as I can tell, this story was just as made up as all the stories in the Mail or the Express. There is a statement on the BECTA website explaining the reasons why the story was rejected, and “offensive to Muslims” was not mentioned at all. Read more at http://news.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=35353&page=1658&catID=1633