THE FULL STORY

This article presents a list of examples where the BBC news has misrepresented the truth during the war in Gaza. Each example is described using a principle of journalism that the BBC has broken. This list is made by a journalist in the hopes of teaching readers to identify when news is inaccurate. 

1) Imbalanced Reporting

As the most recent spate of violence in Gaza broke out in October, hundreds of thousands of Britons lined the streets of London to show their support of Gazans after they were bombarded by the Israeli forces. After the protest, the BBC reported that “thousands” had protested for Gaza. The BBC wrote, “around 70,000 people gathered on the streets of the capital holding flags and banners on Saturday as they demanded an end to the bombing.”

However, the Friends of Al-Aqsa charity, who helped organise the event, reported there were 500,000 people in attendance at the protest. 

The BBC responded to this complaint saying, “The BBC contacted the Met Police press office to obtain this figure and we believe it to have been accurate.” The principle of journalism that was abandoned here is balance as the BBC failed to achieve a balance in reporting by speaking to only one side of the story, as there weren’t any quotes from the organisers of the march about the numbers of people in attendance.

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67246847.amp

2) Under-reporting

Millions of twitter-users interacted with a tweet by a lawyer who was furious when he realised the BBC chose to broadcast the entire Israeli defence case at the International Court of Justice (IJC), without broadcasting the South Africa’s prosecution case for genocide at against Israel at the IJC. 

The BBC defended this decision stating, “The international feed of the BBC News channel featured more live streaming and analysis from the ICJ on Thursday 11 January than the UK feed, because the latter was taking live proceedings from the resumption of the Post Office inquiry – a story of huge public interest for UK audiences.” 

Again, both sides of the story were not equally represented here but also the subjective decision to highlight a national story about the Post Office inquiry as opposed to an international story impacting billions around the world was used to evade the truth. In this case, under-reporting was the technique used by the BBC to evade the truth. 

3 Avoiding the use of experts 

Hate crime has rocked the UK since October as seen by a 1,000% rise in antisemitism and 300% rise in Islamophobia. According to an article published by the BBC by Marianna Spring, “There’s been much more antisemitic material [referred to us] than Islamophobia material.” While any form of extremism is unjustified, at a time when far-right extremism poses the biggest threat in the UK, it could be argued that this article falsely represents a rise of extremism solely amongst one group. 

By avoiding the use of expert analysis, such as academic research and statistics, the article fails to analyse the situation or assess which corners of society are truly seeing the greatest rise in radicalisation and why this may be happening. For example, one twitter-user replied it was, “Most likely because of the incessant bombing of innocent civilians.”

Spring’s imbalanced reporting focuses on extremism only in one group and does not provide any analysis for the phenomenon. What does the average person think about this? You just have to read the comments left by angry twitter users on the writer’s post of her article to see how many people felt she misrepresented the issue. 

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67884785.amp

4 The Dehumanisation of Palestinians through words and imagery

The BBC has dehumanised Palestinians by using using inaccurate imagery and vocabulary. For example, an article from November showed a smiling Palestinian man under a headline describing how his home was bombed by Israel. Is it just me, or would you not be smiling if your home was bombed? 

Similarly, Mona Chalabi, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for journalism, compared the number of times ‘murdered’ was used in BBC articles referring to  Palestinians and Israelis in the month and a half, following October 7th. For example, she found the BBC had used the word ‘murder’ in articles about Israeli victims more (101) than Palestinian (1) victims. She said, the “BBC news had shown a clear bias, giving Israeli victims more coverage and more compassion than Palestinian victims.” 

The choice to use misrepresentative images and vocabulary in articles contributes to the dehumanisation of Palestinian individuals, Muslims, Arabs and others who are painted as unfeeling, devoid of emotions and collateral damage.

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67327079.amp

5 Avoiding the context about the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict when reporting about it

A recent article about Charlotte Church’s use of ‘From the River to the Sea’ was in the news entitled ‘Church denies antisemitism after pro-Palestinian chant.’ The article explains that some Jewish people view the wording as antisemitic. 

Wile the article does state that the chant is purely a call for people’s freedom, it overlooks some important context. For example, the chant was used in response to the Likud Party Charter which states that there will be Israeli sovereignty from the river to the sea. 

Therefore, when the BBC feels it appropriate to highlight potential antisemitic undertones of the slogan, it must make it clear the supporters of Zionism are the ones who established that phrase. 

In conclusion, it’s best to reflect every time we read an article and ask ourselves, whether the article is balanced with both sides of the issue represented accurately. It’s also important to reflect on the language, tone, and imagery used to depict a situation and ask ourselves whether it’s accurate.

Finally, the context and the use of experts and statistics should also be scrutinised to see whether you are reading is representative of the truth. These techniques will help you to be an informed reader of the news.