BBC criticised over Iran coverage

[Ihatetomatoes]

Ive just watched a news item in which the BBC was heavily criticised for it's coverage of the slaughter of thousands of its own people by the Iranian regime.

The reporter said it was almost like nothing catastrophic had happened, no emotional language (as used in other stories) but almost as if 'protesters were merely bundled in a van) rather than being shot in their thousands.

The BBC response

"Reporting from Iran is an ongoing challenge and our correspondents are rarely allowed access. Colleagues in the BBC Persian Service are not allowed into Iran, suffer daily harassment and their families back home are persecuted. As such, we put high importance on on-the-ground reporting and hearing directly ordinary Iranian people.

We are transparent with audiences about the restrictions put on our reporting- in this case, that we are not allowed to share news footage with BBC Persian.

We have covered the anti government protests- and the authorities' violent crackdown since they began.....

Interesting.

Do you have a link to the report please @Ihatetomatoes or where did it come from?

The lack of emotive language in reporting the news about Iran is very noticeable after 2 years of reports about Gaza. Always focusing on women & children and other techniques to elicit maximum sympathy.

Not seen that in the reporting of the thousands who have been killed in Iran yet they would nearly all have been innocent civilians and many women & children killed by their own government.

I don't, it was on BBC news TV earlier today and so I paused it to make sure I took their response down correctly.

How does the coverage compare to Sky News?

I've tried to see if I could find it online yet. It was only on BBC news today.

However, I found this, seems not everyone is happy with how the BBC address Iran, in order to keep Islamists happy.

https://www.gbnews.com/celebrity/john-cleese-bbc-iran-bias-controversy-coverage-x

In one of the most high-profile rows, the Israeli embassy publicly slammed the BBC over its reporting on the Iran protests, with embassy spokesman Alex Gandler claiming the broadcaster has maintained "near-total silence" on the demonstrations while devoting excessive attention to Gaza.

Iranian journalist Mani Barsharzad has added to the criticism, telling GB News that many Iranians perceive the BBC as biased in its coverage of the protests.

"There is a bias there because it doesn't fit the narrative," she said. "The narrative, which they want to say is 'it is their own culture'. 'If the Islamic Republic is oppressive, it's because the people want that.' But this is not the reality."

Now, Mr Cleese has joined the critics. He took to X, where he reposted criticism of the broadcaster from the likes of Sharron Davies and Jake Wallis Simons, among others taking aim at the Beeb over the supposed lack of coverage from Iran.

People aren't criticising the coverage from Sky though. It's the coverage from the BBC that has annoyed people

Here's another report from a different source, also critical of the BBC coverage of Iran.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01/09/the-bbc-iran-coverage-poor/

A 'Top Tory slams BBC coverage of Iran". It seems to be from numerous sources that believe they aren't or weren't giving the attention to the massive story of thousands killed in just a few days in Iran.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2152988/bbc-condemned-Tom-Tugendhat-Iran/amp

@Twiglets1

Interesting quotation:

"The broadcaster’s fact-checking ‘Verify’ service also branded the uprising a “cost of living protest”, and has appeared to rely heavily on official pro-Ayatollah press releases from the Iranian government."

I think the issue is the obsessive coverage of Israel/ Palestine, they were equally relatively uninterested in Syria, Uyghurs, Sudan, Congo, Yemen- all other conflicts / humanitarian crises all over the world. Only one conflict gets disproportionate coverage. I don't blame the BBC solely- they just know their audience.
The poor Iranian coverage is just more noticeable because of the proximity / crossover with Israel.

If people still don't accept the BBCs pro terrorist bias now they never will.

Blimey, they sound like they need to clear their cookies and escape from their media bubble.

I use the Iran tag on the BBC News website, so I've spent the last few weeks reading articles like this:

9 Feb 2026
Revealing names and faces of the victims of Iran's protest crackdown
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62v248xkl5o

and this:

27 Jan 2026
'We all know someone who was killed' - Iran protesters tell BBC of brutal crackdown
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy8y2jxx9ppo

BBC News Persian has a project to try to identify and memorialise those killed. It's in Persian and it's here:
https://www.bbc.com/persian/resources/idt-c005edd8-7204-4c74-a478-f9d719519b00

The BbC has a duty to remain impartial. They haven't been in their disproportionate coverage of Israel/Gaza and more or less ignoring the situation in Iran by comparison. The Iranian theocracy funds Hamas, Hezbollah and Houtis in case the BBC has forgotten.

Of course I could devote my time to talking about some MN poster talking about John Cleese talking about a GBNews presenter talking about the BBC talking about Iran (or which ever order that combo should be).

But that just seems like a circle jerk of UK media talking heads.

I do too but we are a minority. Unlike Israel/Gaza which has been 'reported' on TV and radio almost daily during the two year war, we have to search online for news on Iran.

I’ve seen heartbreaking video shared from inside Iran of sobbing mothers opening body bags in makeshift mortuaries in Tehran, looking for their son or daughter, amongst hundreds if not thousands of dead. On the UK news? Crickets.

The media silence is deafening as is the government’s, but I would say it’s not confined to the BBC. There is some horrific mental yoga going on amongst certain interest groups. Criticising the murderous regime is “playing into Israel’s hands” and the entire diaspora is “Islamophobic”. Make it make sense!

For the first time in my life, I’m hoping Trump finds his balls down the back of the sofa and takes out Khomeini.

Did you not see the bit about there being no reporters in the country ? How could they fact check anything when no reporters, and the web was down.

Somehow 'news' got out of Gaza ... When no reporters were allowed into a war zone 🤔

Some of the quotes of quotes of quotes on this thread also seem a little far down the game of whispers.

Eg this is from 12 January 2026 (upadated 14 Jan):

Why are there protests in Iran and what has Trump said about US action?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgjw8wxl3d6o

At least 2,400 protesters are reported to have been killed in Iran during more than two weeks of nationwide unrest which has threatened the rule of the Islamic regime. Thousands more are said to have been arrested.
[...]
When did the protests begin and why are people angry?
On 28 December, shopkeepers took to the streets of Tehran to express their anger at another sharp fall in the value of the Iranian currency, the rial, against the US dollar on the open market [...] which has resulted in crippling price rises for everyday items like cooking oil and meat.

University students soon joined the protests and the demonstrations began spreading to other cities. There were wider calls for political change, with crowds frequently heard chanting slogans against the country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Expressions of support for Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran's late former shah (king), became more widespread throughout the first week of January, when thousands of people took to the streets of Tehran and other major cities.

According to the US-based Iranian Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), protests have been confirmed in 187 cities and towns in all 31 of Iran's provinces since the start of the unrest.

HRANA has not provided an estimate for the total number of people believed to have taken part, although it has said that more than 18,000 protesters have been arrested.

How are the authorities responding to the protests?
[...]
On 14 January, HRANA reported that 2,417 protesters, 12 children, 147 people affiliated with the security forces and government, and 10 uninvolved civilians had been confirmed killed since the protests began. In addition, HRANA said it had received 829 other reports of deaths that remained under review.
[...]
On 11 January, videos emerged from the Kahrizak Forensic Centre in Tehran showing people searching for the bodies of their loved ones. The BBC counted at least 180 shrouded bodies and body bags in the footage. Around 50 bodies were visible in another video from the facility shared on 12 January.

Who is in charge of Iran?
[...]
Since then the country has been run along strict religious lines. Criticism of the regime is not tolerated and personal freedoms have been heavily restricted.

A law requiring women to wear headscarves has been a particular source of deep resentment – and fuelled mass protests in 2022.

Iran has one of the highest execution rates in the world and is consistently ranked among the worst human rights offenders.

That BBC article I've just quoted includes verified footage from a mortuary in Kahrizak, south of Tehran.

Link again, but be warned it's distressing: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgjw8wxl3d6o

There were a lot of Gaza residents reporting directly - I think internet access in Iran has been restricted so citizens can’t access it? One of my team has been unable to contact family there for weeks.

😥

Sorry, my long post of 17:46 above was a bit unclear.

I should have prefaced the quotation by explaining that here was a direct and lengthly quote from an actual BBC article, from which perhaps some of this thread's short "quotes of quotes of quotes" were derived

Naturally the original has considerably more detail.

They can literarily stand on the outside of the Gaza fence and look in, if they are not allowed in of course. Or stand on a high building/hill and see the bombs explode. And they can get footage from other news organizations.

Not so with Iran. Big country.

Think of this. When did you last see a news report from inside Xinjiang ? From any media apart from PRC State media. Sure, there are some Potemkin village type things done (that has it's own ethics) , but western media can't just wander around interviewing people.

Oh heavens, @FrothyCothy . Hope your team member's family are safe.