The BBC loses, game, set and match

On Tuesday evening, I attended the Centre for Media Monitoring’s presentation of its report: BBC on Gaza-Israel: One Story, Double Standards.

It was a tour de force that laid bare much of the BBC’s pro-Israel bias. It used a rigorous methodology, involving the quantification of a large numbers of key indicators.

The authors analysed over 35,000 separate pieces of BBC journalism, and found a systematic pattern. The BBC had minimised Palestinian suffering and perspectives, while amplifying Israeli narratives, victimisation and emotive stories. Israeli deaths were given 33 times more coverage, per fatality, and significantly more emotive language.

But rather than me telling you, I suggest you go straight to the report. I particularly recommend reading pages 8 to 16 which include the Executive Summary, Key findings and statistics. Some figures jump out of the page, for example that BBC articles made zero mention of Israel’s genocidal rhetoric, no Palestinian detainees are referenced as hostages (other than one reference by a presenter in 2025 which was swiftly retracted), the BBC reported the deaths of just 6% of 176 journalists killed by the IDF compared to 62% of journalists killed in the Russia-Ukraine war, BBC presenters shared the Israeli perspective 11 times more frequently than the Palestinian perspective.

The speakers at the event were:

• Rizwana Hamid and Miqdaad Versi, for CfMM

• Andy McDonald, Labour MP for Middlesborough and Thornaby East

• Chris Doyle, Director, Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU)

• Richard Burgess, Director of BBC News Content

• Husam Zomlot, Palestinian Ambassador

• Karishma Patel, former BBC journalist, who resigned over alleged bias

• Peter Oborne, journalist and author (formerly at The Telegraph)

• Baroness Saeeda Warsi, former Chair of the Conservative Party who spoke at the end of the event

Richard Burgess was in a minority of one in trying to defend the BBC’s conduct and couldn’t provide a coherent response.

Statistics don’t count

Burgess questioned the CfMM’s use of statistics and preferred to speak anecdotally about there being two sides, as the BBC had “received critical letters from Jewish journalists”.

In this I detected the same problem with BBC reporting on the antisemitism-in-Labour furore in the run-up to the 2019 elections. The BBC likes to report anecdotal claims, particularly from the Israeli side but fails to search for the truth. To assess the level of antisemitism in the Labour Party, you need statistical information based on surveys of the attitudes of Labour supporters compared to those supporting other parties, such as I provided in an article I published in 2019 with Tim Llewellyn and Alan Maddison. We cited several highly respected sources, some of them Jewish, showing that antisemitism remained primarily concentrated on the right of the political spectrum.

The BBC never drew attention to these statistical findings that challenged the dominant media narrative that Labour had a serious problem with antisemitism.  If it had wanted to identify sources of antisemitism in Britain, the BBC should have been looking at the attitudes and behaviour of leaders and supporters of right-wing parties (Conservative and UKIP).   

Sharp responses

Andy McDonald questioned the BBC’s preoccupation with balanced reporting in a situation of total asymmetry of power between the two parties, and felt that Israel’s intention to ethnically cleanse the Gaza strip needed to be called out rather than obscured.

Karishma Patel spoke from personal experience of the BBC’s failure to interrogate the Israelis about its claims, to provide adequate context to its news items and to frame its coverage around international law. BBC journalists operated in a climate of fear, and many of them had opted to take the path of least resistance.

However, it was Peter Oborne who delivered the most damning rebuke which is captured in this Newscord Video

Oborne put it to Burgess that the BBC had:

• never mentioned the Hannibal Directive, whereby Israel will sacrifice Israeli citizens and soldiers rather than allowing them to be captured - unlike Haaretz, Yeditoth Ahronoth and the Israeli papers, and ABC News which had reported it.

• only once, in passing, mentioned Israel’s Dahiya Doctrine, without which one cannot understand what is going on in Gaza. This doctrine licenses indiscriminate destruction of civilian assets and people in order to terrify the other side into submission. Oborne characerised this as a grotesque omission.

• failed to mention statements of genocidal intent made by the most senior Israeli politicians, notably Netanyahu’s genocidal Amelek remarks.

• on more than 100 occasions closed down references to genocide by the BBC's guests - making it complicit

• only reported 6% of Gazan journalists killed compared to 60% of Ukrainian journalists killed in the Ukraine war, and

• never invited the leading Israeli/British historian, Avi Shlaim, Emeritus Professor of International Relations at Oxford, to appear on the BBC. Oborne goes on to say that he has written more authoritative books about the history of Israel than anybody else (note: he happens to be Jewish and anti-Zionist like Ilan Pappe whom the BBC disinvited in late 2024)

Richard Burgess responded that his role was to direct journalists, and that he was not a Middle Eastern expert. Oborne answered that he should send along somebody who does (have that expertise), and who could defend the BBC well. He closes with the words: that is a very poor defence.

But what difference does this make?

Such devastating findings ought to be rapidly reported by broadcasters and plastered across the headlines of the leading newspapers. My own rapid Google search in the afternoon of 19/06 revealed zero (0) mainstream newspaper articles about CfMM’s report, and that it was only covered by independent and Muslim media outlets like The Canary and Salaam.  

Herein lies the challenge. While the events of Palestine and the Middle East are blood curdling, the key lesson of Middle Eastern wars is that our mainstream news media censors what it doesn't want us to see.

We need to build a consensus in favour of its radical reform and restructuring the media, such that it helps the public understand the issues facing it, while facilitating informed debate about alternative UK policies. In fact this needs to start with the teaching of media literacy and modern history in our schools.