It is probably fair to say that for much of the last century, since its inception, no media organisation was more trusted than the BBC. It built a global reputation on the accuracy and integrity of its reporting and was, for many Britons, a source of great national pride. But who would say that now?
Analysis of the BBC’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict shows that the corporation breached its charter obligation of impartiality and its own editorial guidelines on more than 1500 occasions. It seems impossible that the BBC can simply ignore the findings of this report, but how will they respond? Will they deny and push-back against the charge, or claim that it has come as “a complete shock” to senior BBC executives, who’ll promise “lessons will be learned”? Time will tell.
Of course, the findings of the Asserson report will come as absolutely no surprise at all to anyone who has watched or listened to BBC coverage in recent years. Actually, some might be astonished that an independent assessment could only find 1553 such breaches.
We are all used to bias from the BBC newsroom – on any number of topics. It is so pervasive that we just accept it as one of the perennial irritations of C21st Britain – but the anti-Israel undertone of their broadcasting has serious real-world consequences: Ask any London-based Jew how safe they’ve felt in their own hometown over the last year.
I have many friends who are former BBC staff, and plenty more of a similar metro-Left leaning - Guardian readers every one of them - and all would be genuinely horrified to be accused of anti-Semitism. Some might, if pushed, admit to being “anti-Zionist” but all would vehemently deny being anti-Semitic in any form whatsoever.
So, if not antipathy towards Jews, how to explain such persistent misrepresentations in BBC reporting? Refusing to call Hamas terrorists, even after they've just committed acts of inexpressible horror against innocent civilians. Right from the start, almost glossing-over the savagery of the Oct 7th attack on Israel, to segue immediately into concern for Palestinians and how they might suffer in any IDF response. Deferring to Hamas, in the guise of the Gazan Health Ministry, and being a willing shill for their propaganda – indeed, as documented by Asserson, accusing Israel of genocide on 283 occasions, whilst only levelling the same accusation at the overtly genocidal Hamas 19 times.
The Guardian will, no doubt, be up in arms at this criticism of the BBC, practically their on-air wing, but then similar charges could be made against the Guardian – who regularly claim Israel is committing war crimes and seem happy to parrot civilian casualty figures issued by the very organisation using those civilians as a human shield.
To make a single slip-up in the tone of your reporting, or the framing of a story, might be forgivable. But, whether or not it is unconscious, it is persistent, and the bias always falls on one side of the debate and never the other. At what point do even the most reflexively pro-BBC commentators have to admit that it starts to fit a pattern?
So, what sets the Palestinian cause apart from all others? What is the variable that makes this conflict so different? What about it draws a completely different reaction from the liberal media than any other?
Most of the protestors who took to the streets in “pro-Palestinian” marches, and most bien pensant Liberals who put Palestinian flags on their social media bio, would suggest that they only want peace. But it was noticeable and shocking that such supporters of Palestine were calling for Israel not to "over-react" before a single shot had been fired by the IDF in response to a genocidal atrocity. Where was the compassion for slaughtered Israelis and their families? Where were the calls from the liberal-Left for hostages to be released? These people, attuned to micro-aggressions of the most trivial sort, were strangely silent in the face of rape, torture and mediaeval barbarity.
If peace was really their only desire, and sympathy for the poor, suffering Palestinians their only motivator, then where were the progressives with their placards and flags when Palestinians were being bombed by Bashar Al-Assad?
Why was the tone so much less emotive when reporting on the tens of thousands of their own citizens killed by dictators across the Arab world?
The BBC was cheerleading the British, US and allied forces when they cleared ISIS from Mosul, as well they might, although it cost the lives of up to 40,000 civilians. The civilian-to-combatant ratio was many, MANY times that of the conflict in Gaza – yet the BBC never thought to accuse Western forces and their allies of genocide or war crimes.
More than 300 000 Yemenis have been killed by Saudi Arabia in the last 10 years - Civilians deliberately targeted in airstrikes. How is it that we saw no mass protests by progressives calling for a ceasefire then?
Whether those in the newsrooms of the BBC and Guardian – or marchers chanting “From the River to the Sea” - would like to admit it to themselves or not, millions of Arabs have been killed by other Arabs without meriting so much as a message of condolence by the progressives of the West.
So, again, what was different this time? What was the variable? Is it anything other than, in this instance, the deaths of Arabs could be blamed on Israel? Could be blamed on Jews?
The first step in fixing a problem is admitting to it. Are the BBC capable of such a thing? – I rather doubt it.
Rather than allowing senior BBC execs to obfuscate and dodge, perhaps a select committee might invite on-air apologists like John Simpson, Jeremy Bowen and Lyse Doucet to appear in front of MPs (and licence fee payers) to explain themselves and meet the criticism?
No organisation champions diversity quite like the BBC. But whilst they claim diversity as the greatest imaginable good – in practice they only ever seem to mean a diversity of ethnicity, gender or sexuality - never a diversity of opinion.
BBC hiring policies are always keen to include people who look different, just so long as they think the same.
Thus much of the bias within the BBC is understandable given that programme-makers are almost entirely selected from a cohort who went to the same universities to be fed the same worldview. Everyday these people hear their own opinions reflected by everyone who lives and works in the same bubble, so even whilst they might try to maintain a balanced tone, they cannot see the bias that creeps into every report and programme. The fact that it is understandable, however, does not excuse it or nullify it. It is the job of senior editors and producers to ensure that the BBC meets its charter obligation to provide balanced and impartial news and comment. This is something they have demonstrably failed to do.
I am a great supporter of "the idea" of the BBC. To have TV & Radio channels entirely free from advertiser or owner-led interference, supported by licence fee payers, that can produce quality programmes without having to pander to lowest common denominator tastes to chase viewing figures, or push a particular political message, was (and should still be) what made it one of the great British institutions.
However, if the BBC fails to meet its charter obligations then it gives up the right to its funding. If they want to continue receiving state funding then the BBC needs to face up to this and change.
If a national broadcaster is allowed to promote - or propagandise - its own biased view of a conflict - then that paints an untrue picture of the world and skews the national debate. At the extremes it can also offer cover to those whose reprehensible views might otherwise be challenged.
Like anyone of my age, my knowledge of the Holocaust came partly from school and partly through the cultural osmosis from books and films. Growing up in the 1970s it seemed remote and of another era. One thing of which I was absolutely certain was that when the civilised world said “Never Again” it was unthinkable that such horrors could ever reoccur.
Over the last several months, to have seen a Dagestani mob storming an airport to “hunt for Jews", to have seen Stars of David daubed on the front doors of Jewish households in Berlin of all places, to have watched academics, students and “Liberals" marching through London, whilst hate preachers chant for Jihad and the Metropolitan Police stand idly by, then suddenly none of my cosy assumptions that we are past such barbarity seem justified anymore.
I've recently been reading Victor Klemperer's diaries, "I shall Bear Witness", and the parallels are undeniable and chilling.
When our own national broadcaster and those who think themselves "progressive", imagine they are on the virtuous side of the argument airily dismissing anti-semitic calls for genocide, whilst denying the world's only Jewish state the right to defend itself, can we really pretend what happens next will be a surprise that we couldn't see coming? All the while claiming it was something we were powerless to prevent?