If armed agents drag a head of state out of a country without consent, most people would call it a kidnapping. The BBC would prefer you didn’t.

The BBC has told its journalists not to describe the seizure of Venezuela’s president as a “kidnapping”.

The BBC’s News Editor sent the guidance internally and it has since circulated widely online. It is supposedly meant to ensure “clarity and consistency”. What it actually does is show how language gets cleaned up when power is involved.

Because words do more than describe events, they frame them.

“Kidnapping” is an uncomfortable word. It suggests force, illegality and wrongdoing. “Captured” sounds more respectable. It belongs to the language of war. “Seized” sounds calmer still — almost administrative, like someone found it on a supermarket shelf.

BBC not being impartial

By suppressing one word and promoting others, the BBC isn’t avoiding bias. It’s curating which reality sounds most acceptable.

This kind of thing is familiar.

When the West uses violence abroad, the narrative often softens. Bombs become “airstrikes”. Civilians die after being “caught in the crossfire”. Actions occur without clear subjects or actors. Responsibility politely evaporates.

The end result is reporting that sounds reasonable, even when the events in question are extreme.

The BBC would call this impartiality. But impartiality doesn’t mean simply copy-pasting the language of the most powerful country involved and calling that balance.

Journalism should describe what happened, not sanitise it.

If armed agents take a foreign leader out of his country by force, many people will naturally call that a kidnapping. Telling journalists they must not use the word is not neutral. It is an editorial choice. It’s bias.

Defenders of the BBC will argue that “kidnapping” is too loaded. Too emotional. Too political.

But banning the word is political too.

Client journalism

This is how modern media control works. Not through obvious censorship. Not through shouting or threats. But a quiet word about “appropriate language”.

Change the words, and you change what people are allowed to think.

You do not need to support Venezuela’s government to see the problem here. This has nothing to do with liking or condemning Nicolás Maduro. It is about whether a publicly funded broadcaster can call things as they are.

If you can’t describe the forcible removal of a foreign leader by armed agents as a kidnapping, then the question is pretty simple:

When exactly can you call a kidnapping a kidnapping?

Because if it only applies to enemies and never to allies, it isn’t journalism anymore.

It’s branding.

#clientjournalism

Featured image via the Canary

By Ranjan Balakumaran

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