Here’s a brief selection from our findings.
Our first observation concerns a key failing across the BBC and the broadsheets: a virtual absence of communication to audiences about who Hamas actually are and what they represent. We ran a simple index looking for mentions of facts such as:
· Hamas does not recognise Israel
· Hamas calls for Israel’s destruction in its Charter
· Hamas refuses to renounce violence against Israelis
· Hamas has a history of violence against Israelis
· Hamas does not accept previous peace agreements between Israel and the Palestinians
The results are startling. Only 5% of news articles in the broadsheet newspapers made any reference to any of these indicators. Of 18 reports on the Today Programme, one made reference to Hamas’ Charter and the rest made no mention of any of the other indicators, and of ten programmes on the BBC Six and Ten O’clock news, only one included an interview excerpt with Tzipi Livni saying that Hamas ‘cannot accept my right to exist’. This was the only mention of any of the indicators by a quoted source or BBC correspondent. These findings indicate that the journalists behind these reports simply did not view these facts as relevant to the conflict.
Looking at the images in the media, only 4% of all the photographs published about the conflict in the first week depicted Hamas militancy and only one photograph of a rocket launcher appeared in the broadsheets. And in cartoons, more than 75% of all editorial cartoons published over the three-week conflict period depicted Israel as the aggressor, whereas only a quarter even featured depictions of armed Hamas fighters.
Another key failure specifically relates to our national broadcaster. The BBC consistently failed to make the crucial distinction between opinion and fact. The source of the confusion, to a significant extent, is the still highly ambiguous role of Jeremy Bowen: the Middle East ‘Editor.’ As an editor, Jeremy Bowen is permitted to ‘editorialise’ the news, which he does by rendering his reports highly personalised. All of which is fine, as long as any kind of editorialisation is clearly marked as an opinion piece. But this is not what the BBC does. In his daily Gaza diary on the BBC website, the Middle East Editor was given free reign to publish his own partial and emotive opinions. These demonstrated a clear sympathy with the Palestinian case and clear hostility towards Israeli perspectives. For example:
‘Back on 6 January I wrote in this diary about one of the most affecting pieces of video I had seen coming out of Gaza. For me, it is still the most memorable single image of the war. It showed a young Palestinian father kissing his dead baby son goodbye. He was murmuring farewells to his boy and I defy anyone to view it and not be profoundly moved. I was frustrated that I did not even know the names of the man and his son…But I wanted to know more about the man, much more. After a couple of days in Gaza I can tell you a great deal about him…And I am glad that I can finally put a name to a face.’ 23rd January 2009.
As well as a preponderance of entries focusing on personal stories of Palestinians, there was an unmistakable cynicism displayed towards Israel running through the series. On numerous occasions, he made reference to the ‘Israeli narrative’ and ‘Israeli message’, but never once referred to a Palestinian ‘narrative’ or ‘message’. The implication here is that Israeli positions are ‘versions’ and Palestinian positions are reality.
‘Israel has been able to put across its narrative, that it is acting in self defence and doing all it can not to kill civilians. But it has been countered by the sheer weight of images of suffering from Gaza, which have inspired protests across the world.’ 12 January 2009
‘I’m struck by the constant Israeli message that ‘any other country in the world would do the same’. Would they?’ 13 January 2009
Not once in all of the TV coverage we monitored did Mr Bowen tell the personal story of an Israeli. And nowhere in his diary was it made clear that this was his personal opinion and not that of the BBC.
The BBC Editor also slipped personal opinion into some of his news reports. For example, in the late night news on 27 December 2008, he made the assertion in the middle of a news report that
‘Hamas has not been part of the last year of negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. The talks have largely ignored Gaza, which is a fundamental diplomatic failure.’
Whether the exclusion of Hamas (regarded by the EU and US as a terrorist organization) from last year’s negotiations constitutes a ‘fundamental diplomatic failure’ is a matter of opinion and not of fact.
And on the Ten O’Clock News on 5 January 2009:
‘Israel says it tries not to hurt them – all this is the fault of Hamas. Try telling that to the people in Gaza’s overwhelmed hospitals.’
Here, the use of the phrase ‘try telling that to’ is a subtle but effective way of conveying to the viewer that Israel’s assertions should be treated with suspicion or indifference.
Both of these examples constitute breaches of the BBC Editorial Guideline on impartiality:
‘Our journalists and presenters, including those in news and current affairs, may provide professional judgments but may not express personal opinions on matters of public policy or political or industrial controversy. Our audiences should not be able to tell from BBC programmes or other BBC output the personal views of our journalists and presenters on such matters.’
To their credit, the BBC’s news journalists did regularly report what life in Sderot was like and show images of rockets falling, one landing perilously close to Jeremy Bowen himself. Paul Wood especially deserves praise for his balance and detached perspective.
However, there was one other area where the BBC did not manage to convey crucial information to audiences: in acknowledging the deaths of Hamas terrorists as part of the overall casualty rate. Despite understandably heavy focus on Israel’s media ban, there was no mention until after the ceasefire of the danger that Hamas might be influencing the statistics and sources coming out of Gaza. And so each night, the BBC reeled off casualty figures sourced from ‘Palestinian medics’. Only on one occasion did the BBC TV evening news programmes break the figure down into civilian versus non-civilian casualties. 11% of broadcasts on the Today Programme broke down the figure. In contrast, of the 48 broadsheet articles which gave a figure for the number of Palestinians reportedly killed, 40% attempted to make the distinction. So the general impression made was that all casualties were civilian, rather than a combination of civilian and Hamas.
Improvements in coverage were certainly detected in some areas: in the amount of time and space allocated to quoting Israeli spokespeople; in the overall stance taken by the UK’s broadsheets in their editorial pieces (34% were classified as ‘neutral’ about Israel’s operation in Gaza, 32% took a ‘less favourable’ stance and 34% were ‘more favourable’) and in the BBC’s coverage of both perspectives of the conflict in its news reports. It was principally in Jeremy Bowen’s opinion pieces that the BBC did not provide balance
However, when it came to arguably some of the more influential areas of reporting, we detected serious shortcomings, particularly at the BBC. We have seen the privileging of reporters’ own opinions at the expense of a full presentation of the facts and issues. As a result, core journalistic principles have been compromised.
Comments
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Please cite the AUTHOR and source URL when you repost articles
07.02.2009 17:32
Just Journalism on the Reporting of the Gaza Conflict
by Elizabeth Jay, February 6, 2009
IMC Admin
Lies and the lying liars
08.02.2009 01:04
Such principles as journalists are permitted to report first-hand rather than subserviently sticking to the sidelines under state orders under fear of being shot? It is the Israeli state who compromised these principles, with the acquience of the msm outlets.
The BBC often repeated the lie that there were no 'western journalists in Gaza'. That is a factual lie, as every Indymedia reader can testify too - Ewa Jasiewicz is one of many accredited western reporters there and she is certainly an accredited and accepted journalist.
It is also an intrinsicably racist sentiment, as if we implicity couldn't trust the numerous Arab journalists on the ground. I think the days when the phrase 'western journalist' is seen as an acceptable term are long gone. The Gaza massacre shames the western media, you learn more even just by reading the partisan Israeli media.
I think Indymedia has both earned 'special treatment' recently and also deserves special praise for it's recent coverage of Gaza. I personally am prepared to pay something equivalent to an annual subscription to a newspaper or magazine to Indymedia as soon as I can afford to.
Daniel
Your own bias
08.02.2009 10:57
Rivka
Typical Zionists!
08.02.2009 13:14
These scums with all the fire power, total domination of mainstream media, powerful lobby's throughout US and europe, disproportionate use of force, delibertly targetting civillians with their sophisticated weapons come on here and have the CHEEK to complain of media BIAS!
Typical zionist way, mention one small report showing the truth and they start wailing and shouting Anti Semitism and Biased Reporting!
For example CBS did a 10 minute documentry showing the relaities of living in the occupied territories and now no doubt CBS will be labelled pro palestinian despite the fact that their main news which has the most viewers is stronlgy bias against the Palestinians the victims in this latest Israeli genocide!
John
We all have biases - what's yours?
09.02.2009 10:46
Craig Murray makes two points about Sderot that are worth paying attention to. Firstly that the BBC were "embedded" there is a source of great pro-Israel bias. Where were Beeb journalists embedded in Gaza during the bombardment? The simple truth here is that it was simply too dangerous to be embedded with the Palestinians, and much safer to be embedded with the Israelis - and yet Israel perversely gets the sympathetic coverage.
Meanwhile it is entirely relevant that the media are not reporting that Sderot used to be Palestinian. Would the authors suggest this is another example of pro-Palestinian bias?
Jon
Homepage:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/01/biased_broadcas.html