newspapers and "Daring"newspapers

There's a discussion going on in the comments at Biased BBC over a BBC News website article's use of the word "daring" to describe the Islamist terrorist attack on a cafe in Bangladesh. 

Should that word have been used? I very much think not.

The BBC calls the attacked district "a high-security area...considered among the safest places in the capital", so maybe that's why the BBC journalist (Anbarasan Ethirajan, the BBC's South Asia analyst) felt it was appropriate to use it. 

But "daring" is a word that carries strong positive connotations, inevitably bringing along with it the idea of 'courage'. 

And there's nothing 'courageous' about walking, as part of a fully-armed gang, into a cafe where ordinary, unarmed people are relaxing, eating and drinking with the intent of slaughtering them. 

And, as was said over at Biased BBC, such BBC reporters don't seem to quite realise how poorly such terminology plays with the public.

Tellingly, the BBC's own Style Guide agrees. It says the following:

Daring

Do not use in the context of a crime or military action, as it suggests admiration.