At times the BBC’s reporting of the Israel-Hamas war has become more the centre of the story than the story itself.
Its choice of language has turned the Corporation into the incarnation of the mockumentary sitcom TV series W1A 1AA that satirises its management.
AlamyGFEXAW Belfast, Northern Ireland. 7th Aug 2014 – Investigative journalist John Ware, Belfast[/caption]
This time, it’s no laughing matter.
After an outcry, the Board of Deputies of British Jews says the BBC has agreed to stop referring to Hamas as “militants”
But there’s still a ban on describing what Hamas did as “terror acts” or that they’ve used “terror tactics.”
No-one could seriously argue that Hamas hadn’t intended to strike terror into the hearts of Israelis.
What else would anyone call deliberate mass slaughter, torture, and mutilation from beheading and burning?
The BBC argues its role is to report honestly and without favour to every part of its audience and it’s clear that sizeable numbers here and around the world don’t see Hamas as terrorists. So, it’s for others to call Hamas “terrorist.”
Fair enough. But why also ban words like “terror tactics” and “terror acts”?
And why call them “fighters” conferring an absurd kind of nobility on their bestial acts?
What’s wrong with “murderers” or “killers”?
No such strictures have been enforced by Sky or ITV.
With the best of intentions, BBC rules have become a bit too doctrinaire.
The Corporation has also been too defensive in the face of criticism.
It’s acknowledged its language “wasn’t quite right” in its precipitate assumption that an Israeli airstrike had caused the single worst slaughter of the entire Israel-Palestine conflict – 471 Palestinians at the Al Ahli hospital, according to Hamas.
It was worse than that. “It’s hard to see what else this could be, really” said the normally scrupulous Jon Donnison in the Jerusalem Bureau 50 miles from the actual scene.
OK, slipping up in the heat of the moment happens. Still, for the BBC to emphasise that Donnison had “not at any point report(ed) that it was an Israeli strike” was sugaring it.
Donnison did as good as blame Israel. Hours later evidence consistent with a misfired Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket emerged.
Some BBC Arabic news journalists are also reported to have shown appalling bias.
Their social media is said to have endorsed comments likening Hamas to freedom fighters and describing the October 7 pogrom as a “morning of hope.”
Israeli relatives of a grandmother kidnapped by Hamas are reported to have been mocked and “Israel’s prestige” described as “crying in the corner”.
This war has a long way to run. Let’s hope the BBC doesn’t give any more reasons to be the story than the story itself.
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