BBC's coverage of Israeli-Palestinian conflict 'misleading'

BBC's coverage of Israeli-Palestinian conflict 'misleading'
Owen Gibson, media correspondent
Wednesday May 3, 2006
The Guardian


The BBC's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is "incomplete" and "misleading", including failing to adequately report the hardships of Palestinians living under occupation, an independent review commissioned by the corporation's board of governors has found.
The report urges the BBC to be bolder in setting a policy for using the word "terrorism" to describe acts of violence perpetrated against either side and suggests a senior editorial figure should be appointed to "give more secure planning, grip and oversight".

The latest of several reports into contentious areas of the BBC's news provision, it praised the quality of much of its coverage and found "little to suggest deliberate or systematic bias" but listed a series of "identifiable shortcomings".

Chaired by the British Board of Film Classification president, Sir Quentin Thomas, the review said output failed to consistently "constitute a full and fair account of the conflict but rather, in important respects, presents an incomplete and in that sense misleading picture".

snip
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1766215,00.html

with the Truth. Never heard such a thing. (though, at least it seems to be policing itself; perhaps that's the really unheard of thing)

http://www.bbcgovernors.co.uk/docs/rev_israelipalestinian.html

In October 2005 the Governors commissioned the Independent Panel, chaired by Sir Quentin Thomas, to "assess the impartiality of BBC news and current afairs coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with particular regard to accuracy, fairness, context, balance and bias."

The Panel reviewed BBC output, visited the region, considered written submissions from interested organisations and individuals and called witnesses. It also studied content analysis and audience research conducted by Loughborough University and Opinion Leader Research respectively.

Between 3 October and 25 November 2005 the Panel invited written submissions from anyone who wanted to comment on the BBC's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Panel would like to thank all of those people who submitted a response.

The report is published here in full, together with its appendices. The report is entirely the work of the Independent Panel and its contents should be attributed only to the Panel. Likewise, the research carried out by Loughborough University and Opinion Leader Research and any other third party contribution published here should be attributed to them if quoted.

snip

Independent Panel report
follows PDF or text

'Letters
Balance, the BBC and the Middle East

Thursday May 4, 2006
The Guardian

The BBC's Middle East coverage has had important effects on public understanding (BBC's coverage of Israeli-Palestinian conflict 'misleading', May 3). In our study - Bad News from Israel - three years ago we found that there was a strong emphasis on Israeli casualties in TV reports, even though deaths on the Palestinian side were much higher. In a large audience sample from 2002, just 35% knew that the Palestinians had significantly more casualties than the Israelis, while 43% believed either that there were more Israeli casualties or that the figures were the same for each side.

We showed how such reporting could strongly influence attitudes, leading, for example, to the belief that Palestinians were instigating violence while the Israelis "responded". Now the new report from the BBC and the research it commissioned from Loughborough University has found the same pattern for news about casualties, this time concluding that national news programmes reported six times as many Israeli as Palestinian fatalities (a more extreme ratio than we found). The question is: why has this situation been allowed to continue and what will the BBC now do to offer a better informed coverage.
Professor Greg Philo
Glasgow University Media Group

As a Palestinian, the BBC does indeed look unsympathetic most of the time. I look forward to the BBC no longer being afraid to call Palestinian terrorism terrorism, as well as being bold enough to describe targeted assassinations as Israeli executions without trial that inevitably kill civilian bystanders; the Israeli army as occupation forces; settlements as illegal Israeli colonies; and the security barrier as Israeli land theft condemned as illegal by the international court of justice. And if the BBC is really plucky, perhaps it will start describing those Palestinian acts of terrorism as retaliations to Israeli persecution.
Ala Khazendar
Pasadena, California, USA

http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,1767292,00.html