A few publications have picked up on a report led by the British lawyer Trevor Asserson that claims the BBC breached their own editorial guidelines 1,553 times during the first four months of the Israeli war in Gaza.1 Additionally, the researchers also found that BBC reporting associated Israel with genocide 14 times more than Hamas.
This conflict is clearly very emotive and the chances are that your response to the claims of that research will vary depending on your views of the war.
Those who consider the Israeli response warranted in view of the attack by Hamas on 7 October last year will likely see this as confirmation of unfair bias within the BBC.
At the same time, those who consider the Israeli response disproportionate will likely consider the report’s authors to be biased and presenting results that don’t stand up to scrutiny.
We like things to be black and white, so it’s understandable that most people will default to one of those responses.
However, it’s possible for the report to be both right and wrong. We could support Israel’s actions and still see parts of the report as biased and unfair, and we could also oppose Israel’s actions and see parts of the report as impartial and fair.
Unfortunately, that is an attitude that doesn’t sit easily with today’s polarised and partisan world. Let’s try to be above that ourselves and consider a few of the claims made by the report. I’ve not read the full report, so this is just based on third-party reporting and isn’t going to cover every aspect of the claims made.
A Terrorist Is A Terrorist
One big claim is that the BBC failed to classify Hamas as a terrorist organisation repeatedly. Apparently, at the end of October, the BBC said they would describe Hamas as a “proscribed terrorist organisation”. Yet, it’s claimed that of 12,459 references to Hamas, just 409 referenced them as terrorists.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable of the report to state that using that phrasing just 3.2% of the time seems rarer than it should be. Obviously, there is the issue of repetition. If Hamas is called a terrorist organisation at the start of a 90-second report, we can’t really expect the word terrorist to then be repeated every time the reporter says “Hamas”. Regardless of that though, I agree that it sounds like the BBC’s reporting has underplayed Hamas’ terrorist designation.
The old saying “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” may explain some reticence in calling Hamas terrorists, but if that is the case, it’s utter bull-sheep.
A terrorist is a terrorist.
Regardless of the merit or otherwise of their aims, there should be no excuse for acts of terrorism.
The acts carried out by Hamas on 7 October 2023 were pure evil and are indefensible. Acts carried out by the terrorist members of a terrorist organisation and the BBC should always be absolutely clear in specifying Hamas and their members as such.
Biased Journalists
Another worrying complaint of the report is the claim that the BBC has used a number of reporters who have publicly exhibited clear hostility to Israel.
Clearly the use of a journalist who’s on the record calling for “death to Israel” is beyond regrettable. We’re reliant on journalists to provide objective reporting and while we should expect every journalist to have their own biases, we should also expect them to do their best to counter those to provide neutral reporting. Can we really expect that from someone who publicly expresses such hatred for Israel? Of course we can’t.
Some of the other complaints seem more groundless. For example, the report takes umbrage at Jeremy Bowen for comparing Israel to Russia. Considering civilians in Gaza have been killed at a much higher rate than civilians in Ukraine, I’m unclear personally why that’s an unreasonable comparison.
It’s also important to note that Israel has largely blocked access to Gaza for foreign journalists, other than limited trips escorted by the Israeli military. In that context, media organisations like the BBC have to rely on Palestinian journalists and citizen journalists already in Gaza. It seems unreasonable to then complain about the use of biased journalists when the BBC’s hand in this respect has been forced by Israel’s decisions.
Surely the Palestinians have the right to have their story reported, don’t they?
Unbalanced Reporting
The last complaint we’ll consider is that the BBC was guilty of unbalanced reporting.
For example, during the period studied, Israel was associated with the terms “war crimes”, “genocide” and “breach of international law” 127 times, 283 times and 167 times respectively. In comparison, Hamas were associated with those terms 30 times, 19 times and 27 times respectively.
Taking that at face value, those stats seem quite damning. Yet there’s a way to rationalise what initially seems to indicate a strong bias.
The BBC’s news channels are news channels, not history channels.
Other than the 7 October attack, Hamas was basically in a defensive position throughout the four months the report studied. For a few days after the Hamas attack on Israel, that would have been the main story with the focus very much on the barbaric actions their terrorist members carried out that day.
From that point on, for much of the rest of the four-month period, Israel’s actions would have been the primary focus of the news reporting.
In that context, it seems logical that the frequency of references to Israel and Hamas would have been different as Hamas’ attack would have been the main focus for perhaps a week and Israel’s attack would then have been the main focus for the remaining 12 weeks.
That may or may not be the explanation for the claimed imbalance, but does it not seem plausible?
Damned If They Do, Damned If They Don’t
In a polarised world, just about anything seems able to provoke strong and intense emotions, but few things can compare to war in that regard.
It’s always going to be difficult for any news organisation to present their reporting in a way that everyone considers fair and neutral.
The report referenced above isn’t the only claim of bias against the BBC. Eight BBC journalists have previously accused the broadcaster of being biased towards Israel.2
Two groups with opposing viewpoints have considered the same body of evidence and reached completely opposing conclusions.
Bias is part of the human condition. We’re all vulnerable to it. The authors of the report and the journalists who wrote the letter have their own biases that formed their conclusions.
All of us who read the report and the letter also have our biases. It’s essential we never forget that and always try to understand how that influences our thinking.
I’ve tried that here and yet I know many will consider this post biased.
Oh well.