Remember reading the 2004 Balen report requested by the BBC itself to investigate accusations of anti Israel bias in its Middle East reporting?
No, neither do I – because the BBC has resisted all attempts to force it into the public domain. Don’t bother to ring Sherlock Holmes either to find out why because the findings must have been an embarrassing indictment of the Beeb’s lack of neutrality.
At The Commentator Simon Plosker has a good analysis of a more recent report on the BBC’s coverage of the Arab Spring. Generally a whitewash but, to be fair, there are some criticisms, particularly of the rather cavalier use of unverified mobile phone footage without an accompanying caveat.
Perhaps the Balen Report also found that the BBC has an unhealthy reliance on Palestinian “eyewitnesses” whose versions of events cannot be guaranteed as reliable.
And what about the lack of caveats? Does the BBC announce the reporting restrictions from Gaza where there is risk of intimidation and threats from Hamas, both towards foreign media and against Palestinians who deviate from the party line?
That is a very pertinent point. The Hamas administration in Gaza is an authoritarian regime with an unpleasant record of human rights abuse. Any Palestinian who publicly criticised it would almost certainly suffer severe consequences. But in any Gaza vox pop presented by the BBC there is never a caveat about this lack of freedom.
But then should we be surprised? After all whenever “ordinary folk” were interviewed in any Catholic enclave in Northern Ireland during the thirty years of the Troubles we were never told by the BBC that their reporters only operated under IRA “protection”.
Similarly we were never informed that government “minders” always accompanied BBC “journalists” around Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, making certain that every citizen toed the party line.
As long as a regime or group is anti British (or anti Israel) you can be certain those caveats are conveniently forgotten.
After all, as the BBC says, “it’s what we do”
Good post David.
Another recent example to illustrate it is in a BBC article following the British delegation to investigate Israel treatment of Palestinian children . Joy of joys, that it perfectly fits the usual BBC anti-Israel agenda. Funny how neither the British government or the BBC find the Palestinian treatment of their own children, glorifying hatred and terrorism, perfectly normal and acceptable, and not worthy of ‘investigation’. They do manage near the bottom of the article to fit in a brief edit Israeli response identifying the problems for themselves dealing with these children raised the way they are – but who usually reads that far down?
Regarding Similarly we were never informed that government “minders” always accompanied BBC “journalists” around Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, making certain that every citizen toed the party line.
Following the deposition of Saddam Hussein’s regime, the then president of CNN, Eason Jordan, publicly admitted to bias in their coverage of events in Iraq before the war. He had continually denied this allegation when made to him previously. Now he claimed that there had been severe and serious threats, physically to CNN staff based in Baghdad, as well as closure of their offices, if they did not follow the guidelines laid out by Saddam.
The ethics of their decision to remain as part of Saddam’s propaganda machine instead of pulling out and revealing the truth to their public is questionable, but they justified their decision based on maintaining presence there.
It is inconceivable that the BBC would not have been subject to the same restrictions. With the BBC as the world’s largest news agency, and wishing to remain that way, they have a clear motive in not antagonising any of the countries they maintain offices and cable and radio contracts with. Letters discovered by our troops from the BBC correspondent Rageh Omaar, showed him ingratiating himself to Saddam’s son Uday, one of the most despicable characters in history along with his father.
But to this day there has been no admission from the BBC admitting bias because of force – they prefer instead to continue their propaganda of their own free will.
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It has always been so. The media has always buckled. I remember when one brave cameraman decided to film the stadium seating the IRA had built to give the media a ringside seat at an IRA funeral in the 70s. A man in a ski mask told him that if he photographed the staging his knee cap would be detached in a gruesome way. No photo of the seating was ever filmed.
Don’t believe anything you see. Sad but ture.
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The b-bbc always tell us that Hamas is a legitimate government.
What they didn’t tell us is how Hamas dealt with the opposition Fatah party.
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Fascinating. Confirms my view that no rational person could ever be so dishonest as to ignore the facts in the way that that a left winger will if his idealogical beliefs prove to be wrong.
The dishonesty of the marrs and robinsons, for failing to expose the car crash that was gordon brown, can never be forgiven.
As perverted bbc ‘group think’ goes, there is no finer example than the complete bias towards the Palestinians. In reality, any arab society is the complete antithesis of everything the beeboid suposedly holds dear, and yet they still plug away trying to convince the public that the latest incarnation of whichever version of the Muslim Brotherhood is their fave du jour, are really pretty straight kinda guys, just like us really.
Patheticly naive is the kindest way to describe it, sinister is probably more accurate.
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The BBC and the rest of the self-loathing lefty scum want Israel destroyed so there will be another Holocaust. These vile metro trendy lefty freaks will reap what the sow.
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I’m posting this link again because nobody seems to notice it elsewhere, and the Jewish Chronicle (for reasons best known to itself) closed Jonathan’s blog much too early for it to make an impact:
http://www.thejc.com/blogs/jonathan-hoffman/bbc-uses-admirer-antisemite-assess-arab-spring-reporting
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‘Just recently a BBC reporter tweeted on the tragic death of a two-year old Palestinian girl in Gaza as a result of an Israeli air strike. Yet it was only after differing versions came out from Hamas officials, Palestinian medical personnel and Palestinian eyewitnesses that the same BBC reporter managed to get a confession from Hamas that it was their own misfiring rocket that was responsible for the girl’s death.’
It is a concern that I was aware, until now, of the incorrect circumstances behind this girl’s death, but not the correction. I’d applaud the reporter for getting the eventual confession but not the production/editorial for whatever Fogelesque priorities meant the one-sided PR of the BBC’s favoured group prevailed.
This selectivity is also highlighted in the comments.
These days if the BBC has a vox pop, I merely wonder how many they asked and passed over before getting the ‘speaking for the public’ that the BBC felt suited the narrative.
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I’m surprised at the present stand off between Syria and Turkey as I was under the impression that Erdogan and Assad were the best of buddies.
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Edgar Davidson is a fine pro-Israel British blogger whose posts, imho, deserve more attention. His latest one concerns the BBC
http://edgar1981.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/how-news-is-spun-and-bbc-fails-to-learn.html
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Three days ago British journalist, Natasha Smith, was brutally assaulted near Tahrir Square in very similar circumstances to the Lara Logan attack. This doesn’t fit the hopey change narrative of the BBC, but you’ll find information and comment here:
http://john-moloney.blogspot.com/
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The “British” Broadcasting Corporation failed to report the
assaultrape of Ms Smith, but CNN did:CNN interview of British victim of sexual assault in Tahrir Square
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The BBC website now has a reference (under ‘elswhere on the web’ new 22 hrs)
to he CNN report. To my mind he Beeb’s attitude to this story confirms the existence of a conspiracy of silence to protect the Muslim world from bad publicity in the organisation. Either that or there is a Muslim occupying a highly strategic position somewhere in the selective process of stories to run with.
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Well there’s certainly no shortage of them at multi culti frenzied Al-Beeb, including in high and top positions – such as, farcically, in religious programming!
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UN confirms that Arabs lied about dead child
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