I turned to the BBC Ten O'Clock News tonight to hear the latest details of the Canada shootings. Obviously, it was all a bit confused. When Security Correspondent Frank Gardner was questioned live in the studio, he told us that an "Algerian" named Abdul (or Michael) Zehaf-Bibeau had been named as a possible suspect in today's killings. From what I've just read, it appears that Zehaf-Bibeau is actually a Canadian of Algerian descent, and is a recent convert to Islam.
After reminding us that no particular trerrorist group had claimed responsibility for the attacks, Gardner frantically ordered us not to jump to conclusions and reminded us that despite the assumptions we'd all jumped to when we heard about terrorist attacks in Oslo several years' ago, the perpetrator, Anders Behring Breivik, had turned out to be a "right-wing" Norwegian.
Why did Gardner (or his editor) feel it was important to remind us of this fact? Nobody in the video report that preceded his live studio slot had made claims regarding Islamist terrorism. Was the BBC worried that non-Muslim Britons watching the broadcast would immediately swarm out of their homes in search of innocent Muslims to lynch, or mosques to burn down?
We are not children (or we really shouldn't be if we're watching television at 10pm on a school night) and we just want journalists to give us the facts, rather than have them wag their fingers at us and sternly admonish us not to jump to hasty conclusions. Very odd.
I hate to sound like a politician, but, as I head for bed, my thoughts are genuinely with the Canadian people and the family of Corporal Nathan Cirillo, the 24-year old reservist who was shot and killed in Ottawa today.
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