A new report accuses the BBC of breaking its own rules over 1,500 times by favouring Hamas over Israel in its coverage. The Telegraphhas the details.
The report revealed a “deeply worrying pattern of bias” against Israel, according to its authors who analysed four months of the BBC’s output across television, radio, online news, podcasts and social media.
The research, led by British lawyer Trevor Asserson, also found that Israel was associated with genocide more than 14 times more than Hamas in the corporation’s coverage of the conflict.
On Saturday, Danny Cohen, a former BBC executive, warned that there was now an “institutional crisis” at the national broadcaster and called for an independent inquiry into its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.
Two leading Jewish groups, the Campaign Against Antisemitism and the National Jewish Assembly, added their voices to calls for an independent review, while Lord Austin, a former Labour minister, accused the BBC of “high-handed arrogance” for continually dismissing questions over its impartiality.
The Asserson report analysed the BBC’s coverage during a four-month period beginning October 7th, 2023 – the day Hamas carried out a brutal massacre in southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking another 251 into Gaza as hostages.
A team of around 20 lawyers and 20 data scientists contributed to the research, which used artificial intelligence to analyse nine million words of BBC output.
“The findings reveal a deeply worrying pattern of bias and multiple breaches by the BBC of its own editorial guidelines on impartiality, fairness and establishing the truth,” the report said.
It also found that the BBC repeatedly downplayed Hamas terrorism while presenting Israel as a militaristic and aggressive nation.
It claimed that some journalists used by the BBC in its coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict have previously shown sympathy for Hamas and even celebrated its acts of terror.
Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s International Editor, is accused of excusing Hamas’s terrorist activities and comparing Israel to Putin’s Russia, while Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, is also cited for allegedly “downplaying” the October 7th attacks on Israel.
The report singles out the BBC’s Arabic channel, saying that it is one of the most biased of all global media outlets in its treatment of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
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