Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

So that’s all right then

Is there anyone in the world - seriously, anyone - who believes that after six years of illegal detention and torture, the six Guanatanamates are going to get a fair trial?

Let's assume you think it's the right thing to do to bang up brown people for years without any evidence, force them to confess through torture in the interests of 'national security' and the 'war on terror' and deny them their basic human rights. Even then, do you really, deep down in your heart of hearts, think that a military tribunal with the power of the death penalty - risking humiliation on the world stage if the men are found not guilty and go free - is going to represent a fairer trial than a jury of 12 citizens in the United States?

Anyone? No...?

Oh sorry. One person. And that one person is allowed to dominate the BBC's coverage of the story.

US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff has promised a fair trial for Guantanamo prisoners accused of organising the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

Senior figure = authority = journalistic trust = 'promise'. Not 'says', which is the neutral verb given to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and a BBC correspondent in the same story. Not for them the first paragraph and the headline. No, because Michael Chertoff 'promises'.

So that's all right then.

Mr Chertoff told the BBC that there would be "full due-process and defence lawyers and all of the fundamental rights that would bring to justice those were responsible for one of the worst war-crimes in world history".

Really? Have you checked the facts? 'Sorry, deadline's in ten seconds - got to file the story first! He might be completely bullshitting, but it's not my job to find out, I'm only a journalist! But anyway, I won't question what he says about 9-11 being one of the worst war crimes in world history, because I'm sure it is, isn't it?'

Paragraph 26, and we finally get to hear what representatives of the accused say:

Responding to the new charges, a representative of Mohammed al-Qahtani said they would create "show trials".

See, that's writing a balanced story at the sopping-wet 'liberal-left BBC'. Put the political US source first, give them primacy in the story, imply that his words are more important and more honest than anyone else's, don't question anything and shove in a tiny bit of what the man who's been tortured and is going to be executed has to say about his impending doom down the bottom.

There, job done.

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