The BBC’s Jon Donnison has some explaining to do (Via BBC Watch):
BBC’s Jon Donnison summoned to Government Press Office hearing
‘The BBC’s Jon Donnison, together with the head of the BBC Jerusalem Bureau and head of the Foreign Press Association, Paul Danahar, has been summoned by the Government Press Office in Israel to a hearing this coming Wednesday (November 28th) on the subject of Donnison’s Tweet of a picture of a child casualty from Syria as though it were from Gaza – as first publicised by BBC Watch on November 19th 2012.
Then he might also want to explain the rest of his work….such as minimising Israeli casualties and the threat to them, and using the BBC to highlight the death of a Palestinian colleague’s son to elicit sympathy for the Palestinians.
Perhaps he should be even more worried than just about losing his press credentials:
BBC sacks two workers for misusing Twitter
The BBC has fired two members of staff for misusing social media sites, including Twitter, it has emerged.
‘A further two workers have been disciplined following inappropriate behaviour on sites like Twitter and Facebook, the broadcaster has disclosed under a Freedom of Information request.
The “unusual” move comes as the broadcaster imposed an informal ban on its staff for tweeting about the BBC’s “problems”.’
Amazing they can sack staff for tweeting about BBC problems, but back them to the hilt when breaking the BBC charter when caught out in their left-wing bias.
This will be spun as Israeli censorship. His press pass is fairly irrelevant as he spends most of his time spruiking for Hamas in Gaza.
Oh, I so misread your misspelling… what a dirty mind I have *giggles like a girl*
Bugger now I have to correct myself, its a real word :-/ But still 😛
Forget about the bias angle as that will just develop into an argument and stick to how inept Donnison must be as a journalist to have done what he did.
It’s one and the same. It’s precisely because the BBC is determined to act as a campaigning organisation rather than a news organisation that journalistic standards have been thrown overboard. Actually reporting stuff is just a means to an end. They’d really much rather move onto pushing an agenda.
Hey, never mind being summoned to the Ministry, doesn’t anyone at the BBC have anything to say about their staff doing the journalistic equivalent of passing forged notes onto the public?
Its another example of disregard for the truth by the BBC so as to further their own political agenda.
I think that the press should be onto this and ensuring that the BBC don’t get away with this one as they seem to have with their other recent disasters.
Surely the public must see that there is a trend here of the BBC not being truthful and the ‘free press’ should be helping the public to see this.
I am sure the BBC standard response is that the end justifies the means. Israel is such a dreadful stain on liberal humanity that anything is permissible if it means denigrating that country.
Israel should expel him . No ifs no buts no whining.
Another case of “fake, but accurate”?
Yes, Israel should expel him. But the BBC, if it had integrity, would have removed him from the scene as soon as it became clear that he had “gone native”.
‘the broadcaster imposed an informal ban on its staff for tweeting about the BBC’s “problems”.’’
Informal banning… what a nice notion.
Be interesting if it has any greater effect than Hugs’ ‘please don’t make us look bad’, that worked out so well for her (well, other than financially… she must be the world’s highest paid gardener).
Not sure this will play well on top of much else, as again historical precedent shows clamping down on critics within does not end well as those outside approach the bunker.
This is only going to reinforce Donnison’s and the BBC’s opinion that Israel is trying to suppress their truth-speaking. The Beeboids will only be more encouraged than ever now to stand up to Israeli propaganda and tyranny.
Mark my words: Donnison will wear this as a badge of honor.
The impression I have is that the BBC is not at all concerned about law-breaking by journalists in the pursuit of a story outside the United Kingdom. The BBC Guidelines are ambiguous but can be read as only applying to Britain.
A FOI that I submitted on what legal advice a journalist received before embedding with Maoist rebels, a crime in India was rejected with the usual journalism excuse, suggesting that the guidelines requirement to get legal advice before consorting with criminals only applied in the UK.
It really doesn’t matter that Donnison may be guilty of libel against Israel. It didn’t happen in Blighty.
They surely don’t believe that Donnison broke the law at all. The defense is very simple, something we’ve heard before from the BBC and defenders of the indefensible. Maybe they won’t be able to get the nasty Israelis to buy it, but this will be what they’re telling themselves.
Donnison innocently received a photo from a source he thought he could trust, and immediately corrected it when he discovered it was not. No laws broken, just a simple mistake all journalists make at one time or another when the demands of the 24/7 news cycle gets the better of them and there simply isn’t time to thoroughly check every single thing.
And besides, even if it was not a photo from Gaza, it still accurately depicted the suffering of an innocent child, which is the larger point Donnison was making. Fake, but accurate. If the nasty Israelis didn’t deliberately murder the innocent child in the photo, so the BBC thinking goes, they surely murdered others, so it’s perfectly understandable that Donnison would be moved to publish the emotional image.
Just about sums up the prevailing attitude of the whole Guardian/BBc to Israel.
Israel will never win the propaganda war. A real war would be a different matter but would the West allow Israel to fight even in self defence?
Meanwhile, this is the file on the man standing in for Donnison
http://honestreporting.com/tag/aleem-maqbool/
Egypt.
Of course, INBBC’s pro-Hamas/ pro-Muslim Brotherhood reporting extends across the Middle East.
One critical analyst of the West’s media on Egypt puts it this way:-
“Western media is the new Al Jazeera Arabic”
http://sultanalqassemi.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/western-media-is-new-al-jazeera-arabic.html
‘Sky News’:-
“Egypt: Morsi’s Decree Is ‘Wake-Up Call’.
“Observers saw demos as a way to build a liberal democracy, the Muslim Brotherhood saw them as an chance to build an Islamic state.”
-Tim Marshall, Foreign Affairs Editor, ‘Sky News’.
http://news.sky.com/story/1016622/egypt-morsis-decree-is-wake-up-call
The following article contains several criticisms of BBC.
“Gaza: Media Distortions in Words and Images”
by Enza Ferreri.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/11/gaza-media-distortions-in-words-and-images.html
Yeah, but there is Wrong-wrong and there is Righteous-wrong.
Pretty much like the Hamas-military wing and Hamas-charity wing. Luckily you Brits, have the BBC to explain (and dissect) the subtleties.
A careful deconstruction of the classic bBBC ‘Palestinians are being hurt so we don’t have to bother with proper reporting’: http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/13110/
The Spiked article merely complains about the emotive use of images of dead children as opposed to rational reporting and analysis. It does not make the connection that reporters like Donnison killed these children as effectively as if they had been tossing them about on bayonets. The lack of civil bomb-shelters and procedures gives Hamas a win-win situation where either the Israelis are too humane to hit a target where they see the presence of civilians, while if, by mischance, civilians are killed, the likes of Donnison stand ready to use the resulting tragic images as proof of Israeli brutality. Why should Hamas not use their own people as human shields or seek to protect them from raids? Because of people like Donnison and Danahar.
wally, I can’t believe I’ve never really thought much about the excellent point you just made about bomb shelters. I mean, it’s been mentioned once or twice, here and there, but never hit me in the face like this.
What an indictment of the entire UN apparatus there. They build schools were they allow children to be indoctrinated into a death cult, but stand idly by while Hamas doesn’t lift a finger to protect those children’s lives and instead spend aid money on rockets and other weapons with which to bite Israel’s ankles over and over.
It’s also yet another indictment of BBC journalism that Bowen or Donnison or any of the rest of them haven’t been including a line about that in every single report about Gaza the way they do with the “illegal” boilerplate with all reports about the West Bank settlements.
Yes, excellent points in the above two posts. But it’s all part of the asymmetry: there are ‘not enough Israelis being killed’ because they have air-raid systems, equip the houses within the Hamas rocket-range with shelters, and have a fairly effective ‘Iron Dome’ air-defence system to try to keep their civilians safe from the murderous Palestinian onslaught.
That’s the other debate I’d like to see the BBC hold openly and honestly: how many Israelis must die before Israel is allowed to retaliate? The logical conclusion of the “disproportionate” argument is that, seeing as how Israel is so mighty with the weaponry and will inevitably kill more than one Palestinian at a time, there must be some number of Israelis who need to die before Israel is permitted to fight back.
How else to make it “proportionate”? I think this is a horrible and inhuman metric to use, but it’s the only basis for the whole Narrative. The BBC needs to allow someone to shine a light on this, since they’re the Narrative’s biggest pusher.
Dear Sir Arthur, Wally and David P.,
I hope you don’t mind me borrowing this conversation.
I owe you one 🙂
FWIW, try to follow and..
“We’re sorry…
We were unable to handle your request. Please try again or return a bit later.”
BBC Staffer Who Lost Child During Israel-Hamas Conflict Blames “Jews,” Tied to Hamas (VIDEO)
http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/11/29/bbc-staffer-who-lost-child-during-israel-hamas-conflict-blames-jews-tied-to-hamas-video/
I think we can safely assume that there is some more to come out about this guy, as per our comments at the end of the open thread re harry’s place etc.
Following on from that, a link from the article leads to the very same post I was mentioning:
“The article that follows was published on a blog called Harry’s Place. But at least for now it is unavailable as a result of a denial-of-service attack probably launched by anti-Israel hackers. I am presenting it here in full. I encourage other bloggers interested in the truth to copy it and do the same. Note: the associated photo and video are linked to the site under attack and so are not available. I’ve replaced them with similar illustrations.”
http://www.jewishpress.com/blogs/fresno-zionism/who-killed-jihad-masharawis-son-omar/2012/11/27/