BBC faces accusations of 'Israel' bias over Gaza from over 100 staff
A Palestinian father carries his traumatized child as he walks in front of a residential building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza City on October 7, 2023. (AFP)
More than 100 BBC employees have accused the British broadcaster of exhibiting a clear bias toward "Israel" while covering the entity's ongoing year-long war against Palestinians in Gaza.
In a letter addressed to BBC Director-General Tim Davie and signed by over 230 members of the media industry, including 101 anonymous BBC staff, the signatories urged the broadcaster to "recommit to fairness, accuracy, and impartiality" in its reporting on Israeli actions in Gaza.
The letter criticized the BBC for not meeting its editorial standards, citing a lack of "consistently fair and accurate evidence-based journalism" in its coverage of the situation, as reported by The Independent, which obtained the letter.
Among the signatories are British politician Sayeeda Warsi and actress Juliet Stevenson. They called on the BBC to report “without fear or favor” and to “recommit to the highest editorial standards—with emphasis on fairness, accuracy, and due impartiality.”
'BBC must adopt editorial commitments'
Warsi resigned from the opposition Conservative Party in September, stating that it had shifted too far to the right. She described her resignation's tipping point as David Cameron's refusal to condemn the killing of four Palestinian children by Israeli forces while they were playing football.
Other signatories include historian William Dalrymple, Dr. Catherine Happer, a senior lecturer in sociology and director of media at the University of Glasgow, Rizwana Hamid, director at the Centre for Media Monitoring, and broadcaster John Nicolson.
The letter calls for the BBC to adopt several editorial commitments, such as "reiterating that Israel does not grant external journalists access to Gaza; clarifying when there is insufficient evidence to support Israeli claims; ensuring headlines indicate where Israel is the perpetrator; including regular historical context prior to October 2023; and rigorously challenging Israeli government and military representatives in all interviews."
Resignations surge amid crisis of confidence over Gaza coverage
One current BBC staff member who signed the letter told The Independent that some colleagues have resigned over the corporation's coverage of the war in Gaza.
“I have never, in my entire career, witnessed such low levels of staff confidence,” they stated. “I have colleagues who have left the BBC in recent months because they just don’t believe our reporting on Israel and Palestine is honest. So many of us feel paralyzed by the levels of fear.”
Another employee expressed their disillusionment, saying they were “losing faith in the organization [they] work for,” having observed a “huge disparity” in the BBC’streatment of "Israel".
“People are going elsewhere to find the reality of what is happening because we are simply not giving it to them,” they said.
UK media denounced for 'killed by who?' double standard: Gaza coverage
UK mainstream media has been constantly criticized for its coverage of "Israel's" genocide on Gaza, sparking controversy for its journalistic biases that promote double standards through misinformation.
"The coverage of Gaza has several noticeable features. There have been instances of misleading and factually incorrect information being published throughout the last 10 months," media analyst at the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) Faisal Hanif told Anadolu in September.
"Israel" killed two four-day-old newborn twins at their parents' apartment in central Gaza in an airstrike as their father went to collect their birth certificates.
Western mainstream news outlets, including the BBC and Sky News, did not mention "Israeli strikes" in their headlines on their social media posts, prompting online users to ask "Killed by who?"
Hanif highlighted that many Western news outlets continue to refer to a fabricated story presented at the beginning of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, claiming Palestinian Resistance group Hamas "beheaded babies."
The media analyst emphasized that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to the debunked narrative in his address to the US Congress in July, which the BBC reported verbatim without providing context for readers that investigative journalists determined the story to be a fabrication.