If “the network has been forced to issue some 80 corrections to its reporting since Hamas’s October 7 onslaught,” imagine the number of such reports that went undiscovered. Danny Cohen’s accusation against the BBC is serious, and the most important consideration is the question of follow-up.
“Numerous BBC Arabic reporters have repeatedly shown an affinity for Hamas and support for its October 7 massacre in Israel,” but the offending Arab staff are not reporters. They are propaganda tools and should be fired. October 7 has exposed and continues to expose every antisemite — from campuses to national leaders — that continues to get a pass, despite the obviousness of his or her anti-Jew/anti-Israel bias in the face of jihad terror.
“Ex-BBC chief: Network’s Arabic service rife with anti-Israel bias, support for terror,” Times of Israel, May 21, 2024:
The former director of Britain’s BBC national broadcaster has accused the network of “egregious” anti-Israel bias, particularly in its Arabic-language branches, with some reporters allegedly employing the same language employed by spokespeople for Palestinian terror group Hamas.
Noting that the network has been forced to issue some 80 corrections to its reporting since Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, Danny Cohen, who led the network’s TV department in 2013-2015, wrote Tuesday in The Telegraph: “Something is going badly wrong. Mistakes don’t happen 80 times.”
Among other things, he said, numerous BBC Arabic reporters have repeatedly shown an affinity for Hamas and support for its October 7 massacre in Israel, they have reported on terrorism while omitting key facts, and the broadcaster was forced to remove an episode of the BBC Arabic program “Trending” because it doubted that some of the Hamas killings happened at all.
“This plays into an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that seeks to undermine the terrible truth of what happened that day,” Cohen wrote. “How is it possible that editorial standards at BBC Arabic had fallen so low that this was seen as legitimate reporting?”….
Tony Rice says
Listeners in Arab countries will take for the truth whatever the B B C broadcasters say, so if they are reporting one-sided accounts, they should stopped, by forcing the B B C to stop their broadcasting to those areas.
It is bad enough their woke attitude in the UK but to broadcast distorted news abroad has to be stopped
Stein says
The problem is that in any comment about that people say what should have been done, which does not help only when you write emails to BBC and question them
Only when you call them out on social media for everyone to see maybe then people will realize that active actions are needed
What should be done everyone knows
But from that, nothing will change we have to call these people out in public
Rick Gordon says
The BBC is the UK’s version of our NYT. Truth and objectivity have been displaced by a leftist political slant on every issue. I would add some distinctly anti-American bias to both of these publications as well.
Ray Jarman says
Maybe the BBC should be renamed as the Brutish Barbaric Comcast. I used to listen to the BBC-4 quiet often but like the NPR, I don’t even listen once in a while because I do not wish to increase the number of listeners. It is also a matter of principle and I would be embarrassed to be part of their listening audience.
The internet has done a lot to enhance the knowledge that the average person is able to acquire. Were it not for the internet, news outlets such as Jihad Watch would not be possible nor would other excellent outlets like Washington Free Beacon, WND, Gatestone Institute, BNI and several others. A person only needs to take advantage of the availability that has been given to each of us.