The top comment
From the literal BBC website this morning:
"This afternoon’s statement from the UK and dozens of other countries calling for an end to the war in Gaza describes the killing over 800 Palestinians trying to receive humanitarian aid as “horrifying”.
There are almost daily reports of Palestinians being killed while seeking aid since the Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began to distribute aid in late May. Both Israel and the GHF have disputed death tolls, recorded by the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, however the ministry’s figures are widely seen as a reliable count of bodies seen by Gazan hospitals.
Some of the deadliest incidents in recent days include:
Yesterday, at least 67 people waiting for UN aid lorries in northern Gaza were killed
At least 39 Palestinians seeking food were killed near two aid distribution points in southern Gaza on SundayOn 20 July, at least 21 people died during a crush at a GHF site in Khan YounisTen people, including six children, were killed in an air strike while waiting for water in central Gaza on 13 JulyTwenty-four people were killed by Israeli fire near a southern aid site on 12 July
On 11 July, at least 15 people, including eight children, were while queuing for nutritional supplements in front of a clinic in central Gaza
Yeah, they aren’t unbiased, they are more hesitant perhaps than other outlets on the other end of the bias spectrum - but not covering? Covering up? The biggest headline result when I just visited bbc.co.uk was about the starvation campaign.
Their bias can actually be somewhat helpful - it lends legitimacy to what they are reporting on, and makes it harder to claim that it’s “just biased pro-palestine pseudo-journalism” or some crap like that.
More than 100 BBC employees are accusing the corporation of providing favourable coverage toward Israel and are calling on the broadcaster to “recommit to fairness, accuracy, and impartiality” over its reporting on Gaza.
In a letter sent to Tim Davie, signed by more than 230 members of the media industry, including 101 anonymous BBC staff, the corporation is criticised for failing its own editorial standards by lacking “consistently fair and accurate evidence-based journalism in its coverage of Gaza”.
In 2006, shortly after this study was published, research commissioned by the BBC’s Board of Governors and carried out by Loughborough University confirmed many of its key findings. In addition, the BBC’s independent panel report highlighted the corporation’s “failure to convey adequately the disparity in the Israeli and Palestinian experience, reflecting the fact that one side is in control and the other lives under occupation” and stressed the BBC’s need “to fill in the gaps, most obviously in respect of context and history”.
Despite this, emerging research on BBC reporting since 7 October 2023 has produced similar findings, such as a lack of historical context, and differential use of language in relation to Palestinian and Israeli victims. Imbalances in coverage appear to be a long and consistent feature of BBC reporting.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/bbc-impartiality-trust-israel-gaza-media-experts/
They are most definitely bias. They’re only changing their tune now after months of pressure and because the government, since Lammy visited, is changing their tune too.
This isn’t their first explicit bias either:
So, on the objective evidence presented here, the mainstream TV coverage of the first year of the independence referendum campaigns has not been fair or balanced. Taken together, we have evidence of coverage which seems likely to have damaged the Yes campaign.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/bbc-bias-and-scots-referendum-new-report/
While they’ve been forced to concede somewhat, they’re still overall extremely complacent and tend to side with Israeli propaganda/misinformation/censorship.
Highbury and Islington? Seems a bit much to me.
I’m surprised the BBC agreed to this marketing campaign.
