BBC’s Gaza Coverage: New Report Reveals Deep Bias

Thankyou! I absolutely hate not knowing the full truth about anything. I know it's easy to go down rabbit holes. Part of me thinks you will never ever truly know every aspect.

That's helpful though 🙏

No, there isn't.

The best thing to do is to verify key information yourself. So fact check things you read.

For example if people make an accusation, you can generally go and see if the data stacks up. For instance if people say Israel is starving Gazans you can go and verify the amount of food going in, and compare it with the recommended amounts in similar conflicts.

That is what I always do. It takes loads of time, but you'd be surprised how much of the reporting on this conflict is just complete bull shit.

Is there any reputable neutral media source on this conflict? I am looking for something that is as neutral a source as possible.

I've seen BBC documentary on Oct 7th. I don't see bias in the content of that. I accept the bias exists in other areas.

There are a lot of people in Israel who do not agree with their governments actions. I l think they need our support and voices heard.

I suppose some people think the IDF and Israeli government don't lie.

How about the lies about the paramedics they killed earlier this year, they denied it, the bodies and vehicles were found and they lied about them behaving suspiciously, the video evidence was found.

Does anyone remember the murder of Hind Rajab, a beautiful little six year old on the phone begging for help when the other relatives in the car were dead. The Palestinian Red Crescent notified the IDF where she was and it was agreed an ambulance was going in to get her. She was blown up and so where the paramedics in the ambulance. If the BBC were biased against the IDF they'd play that recording every day, it was horrific.

We know they kill unarmed civilians because they shot three unarmed Israeli hostages who were waving white cloths.

For a biased organisation the BBC hasn't been saying much about the landgrabs in the West Bank and what the settlers (terrorists?) are doing.

None of that means 7th October wasn't also horrific but it was reported. As for the BBC not reporting on the rapes you can still find their report on the BBC site, don't read it if you aren't very strong because it is also horrific.

I am sick of anyone who disapproves of what the IDF and Israeli Govt are doing being called antisemitic.. I suppose the Israeli soldier who has been disclosing some of what is going on, with his identity hidden as he is scared of what will happen if he is identified, is also antisemitic.

I hope Hind and all the other dead children are in heaven/paradise or whatever name is used.

Even in war there are laws and I hope those laws will be enforced.

They do let them in. British broadcasters like BBC, Sky, and ITV are allowed to operate in Israel and outlets like the BBC, Sky, and ITV routinely base correspondents in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Do you mean in Gaza? Yes, access to Gaza is tightly controlled, escorted, and censored and I tend to agree this is a mistake on Israel's strategy broadly.

I get in a practical sense that allowing unescorted journalists into active combat zones could risk revealing troop positions, strategy, or exposing sensitive sites. Embeds are tightly controlled to prevent leaks - just like in other militaries (e.g. the US in Iraq or Afghanistan).

I also get that Gaza is a warzone, and Israel doesn't want to be blamed for killing foreign journalists. If a BBC or Sky team is killed by a Hamas rocket or IDF airstrike, Israel would take the international fall.

But at the end of the day I think journalists should be let in provided there was plans in place to prevent the above.

Also, in past wars, Hamas threatened or pressured reporters into downplaying rocket fire from civilian areas or not mentioning human shields meaning they are likely unable to report freely anyway. Foreign reporters have admitted this. Example: in 2014, multiple correspondents said they were intimidated by Hamas or saw things they didn’t report until they left Gaza.

All of this said, it is probably fair to say that a very large number of people - including journalists - are pretty biased against Israel and I am not sure they can be relied upon to be impartial and not to just amplify propaganda. Given the behavior they have displayed so far.

The facts do come out, if you look carefully. Watch for investigations and verifications and evidence because underneath all the accusations, the facts do appear.

I watch Al Jazeera. Very good reporting.

Well Israel won't let the BBC Sky ITV in so do you think we shouldn't know about the dead the maimed the staving? I'm sure that would suit Israel. Why do you think they don't want reporters in there? War reporters have been operating for many years. Winston Churchill was one as a young man. How come this is different and what might Israel be hiding?

An army operating within the Geneva Convention should have nothing to hide.

• They sanitise language for terrorists, calling them "militants" or similar
• They routinely publish unverified or false reports from Hamas sources and don't label them unverified
• By contrast they are very careful not to publish anything negative about Hamas without verification showing a double standard, for example they did not report on the rapes for months.
• They engage in selective outrage (focus on Gaza response, not Hamas crimes)
• They use headlines that draw false equivalence all the time between terrorists and a democratic state
• They demonstrate a lack of clarity or retraction after incorrect reporting
• They have had to make 15 Gaza related retractions for false reporting since the war
• Their mistakes are 2:1 in favour of Hamas
• They frequently have terrorists on TV and even showed a documentary where the child featured in it was the son of a Hamas member, and very little challenge takes place
• They completely ignore half the story which is unfavourable to Hamas, for example they downplay or ignored Hamas’s intentional embedding of fighters, weapons, and tunnels under schools, mosques, and hospitals.
• Several members of their own team have been removed for being antisemitic, some of which I have seen and it was bad!

they are just generally a poor source and not reliable, which pains me to say as I once had a great deal of love for the BBC

It's war @TheignT . It's a terrible thing and many innocents die. I'm not saying I don't care about dead innocents and children because I really do. But the two state solution is dead in the water due to Hamas' actions and I genuinely have no idea what happens next.

But broadcasting Gazan-based journos without the context @ForgesOfEmpires describes above doesn't surface how Hamas use Gazans as human shields, e.g. not letting civilians move from areas being bombed despite Israeli warnings, not explaining that quite often there are big death tolls to bombing because there are weapon stores that have secondary explosions or civilians surrounding terrorists, etc., not explaining that many of those that have died are terrorist combatants.

Other news sources sometimes cover this and so explain the reason behind what is being portrayed as indiscriminate bombing. They don't mention that terror tunnels are still being targeted and destroyed, etc. They don't show coverage of Hamas stealing aid or shooting their own people (to prevent them from taking it). I've seen this coverage on other Middle Eastern and Israeli news sites.

Now, I accept that they will have their biases too, which is why it's important to look at many sources and evaluate them for what's being included and excluded and why. And unless one has an interest in these things then why would one delve deeper? One would just take what the BBC covers as the 'truth' because, after all, it's the UK's national broadcaster that we all pay for via our license fee. We should be able to trust it. But we really can't. Which is frustrating and disappointing.

Can you tell us which bits are misleading?

The problem is the Israeli govt is taking no notice and no one is doing anything about it. So do you think the reporting of starving and maimed children in Gaza is biased or the truth?

I think you're spot on @ForgesOfEmpires .
And the naivety of the BBC in its reporting is breathtakingly reckless. It causes real harm - to all except Hamas - as it's so misleading.

Most media is biased, but he's the difference between bias and outright state controlled media.

1. Please point me to a news article from an Israeli journalist or publication where they report on the death of the Bibas children and I will be able to find you 50 articles from the same journalist or publication brutally criticising the Israeli government, calling for Bibis resignation, and otherwise holding their own country to account.

2. Then show me any news article from any journalist or publication inside Gaza reporting on the deaths of Gazan children and I will be able to find nothing, zero, not a single sentence criticising Hamas. Because they're not allowed to do that.

So how do you think you get the real truth is nobody is allowed to tell it?

The voices in Israel aren't having much influence though. Do you think the starving babies and children with limbs blown off is biased reporting. If so was it biased when the dead and kidnapped babies and children were reported about 7th October.

I will offer a counter to this, which is only my opinion.

Where the BBC massively fails, is that when it represents its news on the conflict it is either from a western government perspective or from a Palestinian revolutionary perspective.

What's going on in front of us is more than just a war, it is a political battle where many "activists" and "journalists" are themselves ideologically captured and have made it their life's mission to fight for the annihilation of Israel.

At times that includes activist doctors, nurses, scholars who are themselves deeply biased and committed to seeing an end to Israel- that isn't something you'll see in any other conflict! So I take what these people say with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Moreover, the sad and sorry truth is that Gaza has no freedom of press. It never has. So whilst there are some journalists who provide harrowing accounts, they are inherently biased.

No journalists there can be critical of Hamas
No journalists there can call our the ongoing war crimes of Hamas
No journalist there can report on Hamas killing its citizens or torturing them.

Because they themselves would risk death or torture. This is simply a fact, and it's why you'll never see any Palestinian journalist saying pretty reasonable things like "7 October was a bad idea" or "it's a war crime to keep these hostages and we should return them" or even "we've not had an election for 20 years and Hamas steals all our money and must be overthrown".

So the Palestinian voices necessarily ONLY represent those who support Hamas.

Israel, by contrast, has a free press and its journalists and publications savagely criticise the government and present by natural consequences a far broader view.

The voices we never hear from are the Palestinians who DON'T want to destroy Israel, who are raging angry at their aid being stolen, who don't want missiles shot from their children's schools - the real victims.

This conflict is most certainly tricky.

But as a westerner, when you hear Palestinian voices amplified by the media, try to remember that if they told the full truth they'd be unlikely to be alive tomorrow.

You are never going to get the full story.

I'm Egyptian. If you're looking for unbiased information on Israel / Palestine, Al Jazeera isn't it.

It is state-funded by Qatar, a country that openly supports Hamas and has historically taken a strong pro-Palestinian stance. It has an open political goal aligned with Hamas.

Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English differ significantly in tone and content. The Arabic version openly glorifies terror while they sanitise it a bit for the English audience.

Al Jazeera routinely frames the conflict in moral absolutes, casting Palestinians solely as victims and Israelis as aggressors, often omitting or downplaying context like rocket attacks, terror tunnels, or the role of Hamas in civilian suffering.

It highlights Israeli military actions and Palestinian suffering, but often under-reports or justifies violence committed by Palestinian factions, including civilian-targeted terror.

Al Jazeera isn't it can offer insight into how the conflict is perceived in the Arab world, but it presents a highly partisan narrative.

It might be that their bias reflects those of the viewers, and we do all enjoy news that fits what we want it to fit, but I'd take it all with a healthy dose of scepticism.

It is difficult to find unbiased news on this conflict. Framing what's going on requires more than just reading an article.

Interesting coverage about the original report after a review: media watchdog ‘wrongly labelled terror attack coverage as Islamophobic’ www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/045033246dfd0990 Muslim media watchdog ‘wrongly labelled terror attack coverage as Islamophobic’

I agree that generally they do a good job though seem slightly biased in favour of pro Palestine and I disagree with their decision not to call Hamas terrorists (though I understand their reasons given).

I think the BBC were more biased in favour of pro Palestine at the beginning of the war than they have been more recently (strangely when you consider how the war started). I think they have realised they need to present things in a more balanced way in line with their stated values.

I was about to mention this report- thankyou.
I find the BBC to be slightly biased in favour of pro Palestine. The refusing to call Hamas terrorists as such is just the start.
I think I think this because of my own bias.
I think the BBC does a generally good job, especially BBC Verify.

Just putting this here to demonstrate that the BBC’s journalism really can’t be trusted, given it completely contradicts this thread’s premise that the BBC is pro Israel.

The BBC violated its own editorial guidelines 1,553 times during the four-month period beginning October 7, 2023, repeatedly downplaying Hamas terrorism and presenting Israel as an aggressor, according to the Asserson Report. British lawyer Trevor Asserson, who runs Israel’s largest international law firm, Asserson Law Offices, and who has long campaigned against BBC bias, led the research.

Quite fairly, posters could say that this report is inherently biased too given its provenance. You can check it out here if you’re moved to.
https://asserson.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/asserson-report.pdf

I’d also like to point out that if the BBC did report more responsibly then there wouldn’t have been such a large explosion of anti-Jew hatred in the UK.

Maybe it was overcompensation for not calling Hamas terrorists?

I’m honestly not being goady. What I am saying is perhaps they swung too far the other way because of this backlash in the beginning of this conflict around October 7th?

I agree with both points. Israel keeping reporters out is a clever strategy.