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.

There have been some very brave people driving to Iranian border regions in order to contact the outside world using international SIMs.

But I think I then read the Iranian authorities have got wise to this. Unfortunately.

Thank you @Ihatetomatoes

The Telegraph article is behind a paywall but for those who can't read it, a snapshot (dated 9th January):

Mirroring the silence of our keffiyeh-wearing faux-freedom fighters is the sad fact that it took the BBC over a week to put the story of the new revolution in Iran onto its home page – the publicly funded, most-read news website in the country. It is, thankfully, there now.

Writing on X about why the BBC has barely mentioned this uprising that has been going on for nearly two weeks, the BBC’s veteran World Affairs editor John Simpson put this down to how it was “very difficult to get correspondents in. The BBC is banned, and so are most others. It’s a bit like Gaza.”

This, of course, prompted much hilarity as the BBC quoted every cough and spit from Hamas when it came to its Gaza reporting. As Michael Prescott’s memo, first reported in The Telegraph, found: “Claims against Israel seem to be raced to air or online without adequate checks, evidencing either carelessness or a desire always to believe the worst about Israel.”

In contrast, even though the BBC has a Persian service which has been verifying footage coming out of Iran – and putting this on the individual accounts of the reporters – it was only on Thursday night, after celebrities such as JK Rowling started tweeting about the bravery of the Iranians, that the footage finally made it onto the BBC website’s homepage.

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

No reporters, but tens of thousands of diaspora in the UK receiving footage of virtually identical events unfolding across the country, whenever Starlink actually managed to reconnect the population to the internet? Call it “unconfirmed reports” or qualify it however you like - it’s surely as reliable as anything reported by Hamas-controlled authorities in Gaza, which the BBC parroted breathlessly (at least until they were rapped on the knuckles for doing it).

Their main features on their Middle East section include several Iran focused pieces.

Indeed. Make it make sense.

I took the quotation directly off the BBC news report from the TV. I paused and typed it, exactly as the BBC reported it.

Thanks for sharing the full article

More than one quotation of something on this thread.

Some taken directly from and linked to an identified BBC articles; some by people quoting other people quoting etc.

Embarrassingly for that Telegraph writer, Nicole Lampert, it is possible to view the Telegraph's own front pages here:
https://dailytelegraph.pressreader.com/the-daily-telegraph/20251229

Looking from 28 December 2025 onwards, the Telegraph's front page is about bashing Labour, puffing Badenoch, Swiss bar fire, Trump threatening Greenland, Trump's coup in Venezuela, lots and lots about "pub tax" (I think more than about Trump's actions), bit about Harry and Megan, sexbots for Kenyons, etc. The usual.

About Iran, the Telegraph has a small item at the bottom of the front page on 31 Dec:
"Iran crushes protests over economic crisis.
Iranian security forces fired tear gas and beat up protestors[...]"

And another small item on 6 Jan:
"Iran tries to buy off protestors with cash.
Iran will pay £5 a month to its 80 million citizens to quell widespread protests.[...]"

And then nothing until 9 Jan, and that still only a slightly larger article, nothing to suggest the scale or seriousness of the uprising or the brutality of the putdown, and still no pictures:
Iran switches off internet as protests mount
[...] There are fears authorities may use lethal force to put down demonstrations [...]

Then there was nothing at all on the front page of the Telegraph about Iran until Sunday 11 Jan, which finally was a headline with a picture.
Trump vows to help Iran protestors
Military intervention discussed as regime's forces are accused of killing hundreds.

The next mention of Iran on the front page of the Telegraph was not until Tuesday 13, back to being a small item at the bottom of the page without an image.
Armed Iranians fight back against security
A record number of Iranian security forces have been killed in the anti-regime protests sweeping across Iran.[...]

Doubtless there will have been more on the inside pages, just as there were (many) Iran stories on the BBC at this time, but Lampert's test is appearance on the front page.

It was only on Sunday 11 January, after the BBC publishing accounts of the bravery of the Iranians on 8 January, that an image finally made it onto the Sunday Telegraph's front page. And even then the Telegraph front page uses a tame image of some calm protestors which completely fails to convey the violence.
https://dailytelegraph.pressreader.com/the-sunday-telegraph/20260111

So if anything the BBC seems ahead of the Telegraph in its coverage. Eg by 6 January the BBC has a detailed article including BBC Persian's verifications of named deaths while the Telegraph is still at the stage of saying "Unconfirmed reports".

So I think Lampert has questions to answer about the fact that her paper was filling its front page with "pub tax" rather than Iran.

When you say " it’s surely as reliable as anything reported by Hamas-controlled authorities in Gaza, which the BBC parroted breathlessly (at least until they were rapped on the knuckles for doing it).", well yes, they report what the " authorities" say. because they really do have to. Same as they report what the Iranian Regime says.

Do you not see how this works, and the odd conclusion some people are making ? That somehow the BBC has an agenda for reporting Hamas data, but the same is not applied when they report Iranian regime data ? If you see what I mean.

They report what information is given, and it really should be up to the reader to decide if the official source is reliable.

Even though I do appreciate the fact that reports from Iran are highly censored the BBC should not put itself as being the mouthpiece of the regime and such reporting is a mistake and I am sure BBC reporters know this at heart.

If you can't report freely then don't report is a sensible polocy.

Yes, I think there is a point about not wanting to offend Muslims in this country by showing an Islamic regime as the murderous , oppressive entity it is.

It was also a mistake to refuse US use of our airbases when it would cost us nothing and would help support a vital if sometimes tempestuous relationship with the US. We are both on the side of being against terror and we should be rightly proud of that.

Quote " If you can't report freely then don't report is a sensible polocy."

Are you sure about that ?

Have you checked the most recent press freedom index ?

World press freedom index. Data by Countries from 2013 to 2025 (statbase.org)

This is the only index I can get, because I am in one of the bottom countries on this list, and the other lists are... ahem.. blocked. As is the BBC of course.

So going by this list, where is your cut-off point for not reporting ? Or should we say, to not even try reporting?

Have they not been listening to radio 4? They seem to be talking about protester deaths in Iran every morning on my 10 minute drive.

@RedTagAlan if you can’t even get the BBC where you are, it’s strange that you feel qualified to comment on a thread largely about their bias.

Some things are nuanced but the BBC - for those who can easily read their reports each day - have not covered the Gaza war in a neutral way, which they were supposed to as a public broadcaster. Then they showed a reticence to criticise the Iranian leadership despite the atrocities being committed (a reticence that was missing from their coverage of Gaza). So it’s natural that people would question why the difference in the way these two conflicts in the ME have been covered by the BBC.

Other news sources are known in the UK to have a left wing or right wing bias and to support some over others depending on their political stance. But the BBC is seen differently - it is supposed to report news impartially due to the way it is funded by tax payers money.

No one is saying there is no BBC coverage of what is happening in Iran. More that it took the BBC a relatively long time to start talking about it in depth compared to Gaza and it still doesn’t get as much attention as Gaza got.

Totally fair point we me not being qualified to comment on the BBC if I can't actually see it.

I am coming from the angle that I know what it is to be in a place where press control is near total, and how difficult it is to get accurate information.

I'm glad you are able to access MN anyway @RedTagAlan so you are aware of a lot of the debates raging about topics like conflict in the middle east (from a western point of view).

I get western news. BBC is just one of the many that are blocked.

I also know there could be a major incident in the country where I am, and foreign reporting of it would be very restricted. Add to that dubious sources. When there were protests here I had a VPN, twitter etc, and the amount of fake news was incredible. And even though I was on the side of the protestors of course, social media was so awash with fake stuff that there was no point even trying to debunk it.

I also remember talking to a reporter from a major network, wanting to interview me, and although tempted, that was a no.

Fake news is such a problem everywhere. Trump was right about that at least. Though he himself contributes a lot to the fake news.

Exactly

I did reply to that comment. Why not respond to my reply ?

I reply to.posts as I read them. The previous post I read first and replied. I agreed if you don't get the BBC wherever you are then how could you know if impartial or not.

First up I suppose, I was replying to another comment, where I said this :

"Quote:

" If you can't report freely then don't report is a sensible polocy."
Are you sure about that ?

Have you checked the most recent press freedom index ?

World press freedom index. Data by Countries from 2013 to 2025 (statbase.org)
This is the only index I can get, because I am in one of the bottom countries on this list, and the other lists are... ahem.. blocked. As is the BBC of course.
So going by this list, where is your cut-off point for not reporting ? Or should we say, to not even try reporting?"

So I never claimed the BBC was impartial. And other posts I have made on this subject have been about how difficult it is to get verified news from certain places. I have not recently made claims about any news source being impartial.

And yeah, I get it, lots of posts and lots of users so it can be difficult to keep up with the chat. I mean that sincerely. I get muddled with who posted what all the time.

That's why I tend to read to the end of a thread, to see if there is a reply. The thread is about news after all, and I think a big part of reading news is the read to the end sort of thing, rather than make up ones mind that the news is "bad", or whatever, in the first paragraph. If you see what I mean.

BBC is blocked where I am, as I said. I rely on Sky news and CNN. And it seems to me all networks have the same issue with reporting on Iran. Massive country, closed to foreign press, internet was down. Places like Gaza, not so many issues. Stand on a tall building in Isreal, look over the fence, and watch the bombs dropping.

I also saw Sky had a report a few hours ago.

Iranian students clash with security forces during protests amid Donald Trump warning over military strikes | World News | Sky News

Would it be s]fair to assume this news is public domain, and that it will make it's way onto the BBC ?

However, the thread is about criticism aimed at THE BBC which you have stated you cannot get. Difficult to comment on something you can't watch. Sky etc are irrelevant to this criticism, since they haven't been criticised.