Webs Wonder Design

When the BBC Trust refused to allow the BBC to air the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal for the survivors of the Israeli attack on Gaza in Jan 2009, I was reluctant to join the clamour of condemnation because I thought it possible that this BBC was being very clever. In one move it ensured that the appeal got far greater media coverage than if it had allowed the broadcast, while the BBC avoided the criticism of pro Palestinian bias which would surely have come from the Zionist lobby. This would enable the BBC to give fuller coverage of the aftermath of the Israeli assault than if it was already having to defend its impartiality.

How wrong I was. The BBC was not being clever by banning the DEC appeal, it was just being cruel and weak. The BBC appears terrified of angering the Zionist lobby even by broadcasting internationally accepted facts about Israeli policy towards the Palestinians. For instance it seems to regard UN resolutions against Israel as invalid unless Israel accepts them. A standard that it does not apply to any other country.

The Independent Newspaper on Thursday 16th April 2009 reported:

“The BBC Trust yesterday called into question the corporation’s reporting of the most sensitive news story of modern times, publishing findings that the BBC Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen, had breached guidelines on accuracy and impartiality. The ruling will be seized upon by campaigners who claim that BBC News is prejudiced against Israel in its coverage of the Middle East.

“Bowen was censured for a piece which he wrote for the BBC website last June under the headline “Six days that changed the Middle East”, attempting to give context to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by analysing the events of the 1967 Six Day War. The Middle East editor referred to ‘Zionism’s innate instinct to push out the frontier’.

He wrote that Israel showed a “defiance of everyone’s interpretation of international law except its own” and that its generals felt that they were dealing with “unfinished business“, left over from the 1948 War of Independence.

The committee ruled that Bowen’s reporting partially breached the BBC’s rules on accuracy and impartiality.

“Readers might come away from the article thinking that the interpretation offered was the only sensible view of the war,” it said. “It was not necessary for equal space to be given to the other arguments, but … the existence of alternative theses should have been more clearly signposted.”

Robert Fisk in the Independent of the same day did not mince his words in an article entitled “How can you trust the cowardly BBC?”. He began:

“The BBC Trust’s report on Jeremy Bowen’s dispatches from the Middle East is pusillanimous, cowardly, outrageous, factually wrong and ethically dishonest. But I am mincing my words.

“The trust – how I love that word which so dishonours everything about the BBC – has collapsed, in the most shameful way, against the usual Israeli lobbyists who have claimed – against all the facts – that Bowen was wrong to tell the truth.”

Fisk goes on to detail how Jeremy Bowen’s article and broadcast were not only accurate, but already milder versions of the reality which exists.

He concludes:

“I’m afraid it’s the same old story. If you allow yourself to bow down before those who wish you to deviate from the truth, you will stay on your knees forever.”

Fisk then recommends a solution to the problem. Get your news of the Middle East from more accurate and honest broadcasters. He recommends Sky TV and Al-Jazeera English.

I agree wholeheartedly with that suggestion. I made the move away from the BBC News months ago. Instead, I watch and listen to the following online:

1. Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman, the Monday to Friday 1 hour current affairs programme. Israel is always accurately referred to as “Israel and the Occupied Territories”).

2. The Real News Network with Paul Jay, which broadcasts several articles a day of up to 10 mins each.

3. Bill Moyers Journal, has wonderfully conducted lengthy interviews with very knowledgeable guests. Such a contrast to the hectoring argumentative style of Jeremy Paxman and John Humphrys.

4. GritTV with Laura Flanders. Several Interesting discussion and feature pieces each day.

5. Aljazeera English 24 hour news channel – this can also be received just as an audio feed.

6. Sky News can be viewed online but you need to be a Sky subscriber. I’m not, so I listen to the Sky News audio feed only which is usually adequate, given that the visuals on most news reports are completely unnecessary.

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