BBC To Review Middle East Coverage After Admitting Gaza War Errors
Following mounting criticism of its reporting on the Israel-Gaza war, the British Broadcasting Corporation has said it will conduct an extensive review of its Middle East coverage, acknowledging that serious journalistic errors were made along the way.
The decision comes in the wake of a detailed, 13-page dossier accusing the broadcaster of bias, along with the leak of an internal memo authored by independent adviser Michael Prescott. That memo argued that BBC reporting frequently presumed negative intent on Israel’s part. It also charged that BBC Arabic minimized Israeli suffering while depicting Israel as the aggressor, even though Hamas initiated the war with its October 7 terrorist attack.
Addressing the complaints, Peter Johnston, the BBC’s Director of Editorial Complaints and Reviews, issued a formal response evaluating the allegations. In his report, Johnston admitted that the corporation committed several major errors, including incorrectly stating that the International Court of Justice had determined there was a “plausible cause of genocide” in Gaza.
Johnston’s findings also pointed to serious problems in how casualty figures were presented. Among the mistakes cited was a Newsnight segment that raised alarm over claims that 14,000 babies were at risk of starvation within 48 hours — a figure the BBC later acknowledged was wrong.
Other failures outlined in the report included a televised claim that Israeli forces had buried bodies in mass graves, when in fact Hamas was responsible, as well as a story about Gaza medical workers that failed to mention allegations that Hamas was operating from the hospital in question. The BBC further conceded that it did not disclose that the narrator of a Gaza documentary was the son of a Hamas official.
According to Johnston, the BBC later issued corrections and acknowledged that it erred by relying on freelance journalists whose social media activity reflected support for Hamas and antisemitic sentiment. He also noted that the Editorial Guidance and Standards Committee had already begun rolling out additional training for BBC Arabic staff.
Looking ahead, the BBC Board, together with the Editorial Guidance and Standards Committee, plans to launch a full editorial review of the broadcaster’s Middle East reporting. Johnston said this process is intended to provide a thorough assessment of coverage on a highly complex and sensitive subject and to ensure that lessons are properly learned.
Beyond the Middle East, the report also reviewed the BBC’s approach to other contentious areas, including gender identity issues and Britain’s colonial past. In those cases as well, it acknowledged weaknesses in how criticism was handled and called for further internal scrutiny.
{Matzav.com}
