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The National
6 hours ago
- Politics
- The National
BBC's 'pattern of bias' on Gaza and clash with Scottish minister
Welcome to this week's Media Watch. Remember you can sign up to receive this newsletter for free every week by clicking the banner above. Fresh report on BBC 'bias' in Gaza coverage We have been covering accusations of bias over the BBC's reporting of Israel's assault on Gaza for some time now, and a fresh report has now found the broadcaster has demonstrated 'double standards and the silencing of Palestinian voices'. The Centre of Media Monitoring (CfMM) analysed the BBC's coverage of Israel's war on Gaza between October 7 2023 and October 6 2024, looking at 3873 articles and 32,092 broadcast segments. Despite there being 34 times more Palestinian deaths, the CfMM found this was not reflected in the number of victim profiles the BBC ran for Palestinians (279) and Israelis (201). During the timeframe analysed by the CfMM, 42,010 Palestinians and 1246 Israelis were killed. The death toll in Gaza has now reached more than 55,000 Palestinians, many of whom were women and children. READ MORE: Rest of Madleen crew released after being detained by Israel The report also found that the BBC interviewed twice as many Israelis as Palestinians when reporting on Gaza. During the analysis period, the BBC interviewed 2350 Israelis compared to 1085 Palestinians. The CfMM said that while the BBC asked 38 guests to condemn Hamas, it asked zero to condemn Israel's mass killing of civilians. The report concluded there is 'a pattern of bias' in the BBC's coverage. Despite Israel being credibly accused of committing genocide in Gaza, the CfMM said BBC presenters interrupted or dismissed genocide claims more than 100 times, yet made no mention of genocidal rhetoric used by Israeli leaders. Further, the term "war crimes" in relation to Israeli violence against Palestinians was mentioned in only 121 BBC articles analysed – just 3 per cent of the total. When the BBC was asked about the report, it said there appeared to have been 'some reliance on AI' to analyse language adding 'we do not think due impartiality can be measured by counting words'. (Image: AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana) 'We make our own, independent editorial decisions, and we reject any suggestion otherwise,' a spokesperson said. The report comes after Dr Tom Mills, who analysed the corporation in The BBC: Myth of a Public Service in 2016, collected data via Nexis UK earlier this year to determine how often the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or International Criminal Court (ICC) is mentioned in BBC news reports in relation to Israel and Gaza coverage. Mills found the bodies were "almost never" mentioned. In more than 200 BBC1 reports he collected mentioning Israel and Gaza between February 20 and March 19 this year, the institutions were only mentioned five times. This is despite the ICJ saying Israel is under an obligation to end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories as rapidly as possible, cease all new settlement activities, evacuate settlers, and make reparations for damages caused. Scottish minister clashes with BBC presenter Elsewhere, SNP minister Gillian Martin has clashed with a BBC Radio Scotland presenter over Scottish independence. The Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy appeared on Radio Scotland on Monday morning and dismissed claims that the First Minister John Swinney had not spoken with the Prime Minister about Scottish independence. She appeared on the show to discuss the Scottish Government's plans on how to mitigate waste when "black bag" waste is banned from being buried in landfills at the end of the year. READ MORE: UK must 'constrain Israel' after attacks on Iran, John Swinney says According to the BBC, up to 100 truckloads of Scotland's waste could be transported each day to England once a landfill ban comes into effect. However, Martin argued that the measure was only temporary while local authorities adjusted to the change in waste policy. Shortly after this discussion, Radio Scotland host Laura Maxwell changed the topic towards independence as she highlighted that Swinney is set to deliver a speech in Edinburgh on Tuesday outlining how self-determination could achieve Scotland's long-term goals. After saying that independence was the right route forward for Scotland, Maxwell then interrupted Martin, asking: 'In a couple of sentences, just lay out how the current government plans to achieve independence.' Martin replied: 'Scottish independence will happen when the majority of people in Scotland want it.' However, Martin was again only seconds into her reply when Maxwell cut her off again by saying: 'That's the political argument, but actually doing it, how do you plan to achieve it?' Martin replied: 'It is an untenable situation for the UK Government to deny democracy to the people of Scotland. 'If they vote for independence-promoting parties, then there has to be a rethink.' Martin also suggested she did not believe Keir Starmer when said Swinney had not broached the subject with independence with him.
The National
11 hours ago
- Politics
- The National
BBC coverage of Israel's war on Gaza shows 'pattern of bias'
The 188-page report from the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), published on Monday, analysed the BBC's coverage of Israel's war on Gaza between October 7, 2023 and October 6, 2024, looking at 3873 articles and 32,092 broadcast segments. Despite there being 34 times more Palestinian deaths, the CfMM found this was not reflected in the number of victim profiles the BBC ran for Palestinians (279) and Israelis (201). READ MORE: Windows smashed and graffiti sprayed on BBC building in Gaza protest During the timeframe analysed by the CfMM, 42,010 Palestinians and 1246 Israelis were killed. The death toll in Gaza has now reached more than 55,000 Palestinians, many of whom were women and children. The report found that the BBC interviewed twice as many Israelis as Palestinians when reporting on Gaza. During the analysis period, the BBC interviewed 2350 Israelis compared to 1085 Palestinians. The CfMM said that while the BBC asked 38 guests to condemn Hamas, it asked zero to condemn Israel's mass killing of civilians. And despite Israel being credibly accused of committing genocide in Gaza, the CfMM said BBC presenters interrupted or dismissed genocide claims more than 100 times, yet made no mention of genocidal rhetoric used by Israeli leaders. Further, the term "war crimes" in relation to Israeli violence against Palestinians was mentioned in only 121 BBC articles analysed by the CfMM – just 3% of the total. When it comes to the words used by the BBC when discussing Gaza, the CfMM said that the BBC "deploys a hierarchy of language for Israelis and Palestinians", as it found that emotive language such as "slaughter" and "massacre" was used four times more often when reporting on Israeli deaths than Palestinian. READ MORE: BBC bosses draw up plans to win over Reform UK voters The report also highlights how the words "butchered", "butcher" and "butchering" were used exclusively for Israeli victims by BBC correspondents and presenters, while "murder[ed]" was referenced 220 for actions against Israelis and just once for Palestinians. Further, when reporting on the hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas, the BBC "consistently" referred to Israeli captives as "hostages" and Palestinians detained by Israel, even those held without charge, were labelled as "prisoners". The CfMM said this implied "criminality and reinforc[ed] Israeli government narratives". The BBC was also found to attach the "Hamas-run" qualifier (for example, "Hamas-run health ministry") to Palestinian casualty figures in 1155 articles – almost as many times as the Palestinian death toll was mentioned across BBC articles. The CmFF said this "undermin[ed] Gazan casualties and Palestinian suffering, more generally". When compared with the BBC's coverage of the war in Ukraine, the report states that the broadcaster mentioned Russian war crimes 2.6 times more than Israeli ones and used sympathetic language for Ukrainian victims two times more than for Palestinians. The CfMM, which is a project by the Muslim Council of Britain, called for an independent public review of the BBC's reporting on Gaza. Sharing the report on social media, the CfMM said: "This report is evidence-based, rigorous and damning. The BBC must reform." Commenting on the report, Husam Zomlot, Palestinian ambassador to the UK, said: "In spite of the genocidal rhetoric of the Israeli leadership, the media persisted in projecting an inaccurate equivalence, distorting realities on the ground." READ MORE: BBC issues statement after staff 'held at gunpoint and strip searched' by IDF Meanwhile, Karishma Patel, a former BBC journalist who left the corporation last October because of its Gaza coverage, said: "I could see every editorial failure in this report playing out as it happened, and now the data is utterly clear in supporting what I witnessed." And Francesca Albanese, the UN's special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, said: "Most mainstream media have failed in their most basic duty: they have largely manufactured consent, enabling a genocide in real time." A BBC spokesperson said: 'We welcome scrutiny and reflect on all feedback. Throughout our impartial reporting on the conflict we have made clear the devastating human cost to civilians living in Gaza. We will continue to give careful thought to how we do this. 'We believe it is imperative that our journalists have access to Gaza, and we continue to call on the Israeli government to grant this. 'We agree that language is vitally important but we have some questions about what appears to be a reliance on AI to analyse it in this report, and we do not think due impartiality can be measured by counting words. We make our own, independent editorial decisions, and we reject any suggestion otherwise. 'However, we will consider the report carefully and study its findings in detail.'
The National
12 hours ago
- Politics
- The National
BBC's coverage on Israel's war on Gaza shows 'pattern of bias'
The 188-page report from the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), published on Monday, analysed the BBC's coverage of Israel's war on Gaza between October 7, 2023 and October 6, 2024, looking at 3873 articles and 32,092 broadcast segments. Despite there being 34 times more Palestinian deaths, the CfMM found that the BBC ran almost the same number of victim profiles for Palestinians (279) and Israelis (201). READ MORE: Windows smashed and graffiti sprayed on BBC building in Gaza protest During the timeframe analysed by the CfMM, 42,010 Palestinians and 1246 Israelis were killed. The death toll in Gaza has now reached more than 55,000 Palestinians, many of whom were women and children. The report found that the BBC interviewed twice as many Israelis as Palestinians when reporting on Gaza. During the analysis period, the BBC interviewed 2350 Israelis compared to 1085 Palestinians. The CfMM said that while the BBC asked 38 guests to condemn Hamas, it asked zero to condemn Israel's mass killing of civilians. And despite Israel being credibly accused of committing genocide in Gaza, the CfMM said BBC presenters interrupted or dismissed genocide claims more than 100 times, yet made no mention of genocidal rhetoric used by Israeli leaders. Further, the term "war crimes" in relation to Israeli violence against Palestinians was mentioned in only 121 BBC articles analysed by the CfMM – just 3% of the total. When it comes to the language used by the BBC when discussing Gaza, the CfMM said that the BBC "deploys a hierarchy of language for Israelis and Palestinians", as it found that emotive language such as "slaughter" and "massacre" was used four times more often when reporting on Israeli deaths than Palestinian. READ MORE: BBC bosses draw up plans to win over Reform UK voters The report also highlights how the words "butchered", "butcher" and "butchering" were used exclusively for Israeli victims by BBC correspondents and presenters, while "murder[ed]" was referenced 220 for actions against Israelis and just once for Palestinians. Further, when reporting on the hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas, the BBC "consistently" referred to Israeli captives as "hostages" and Palestinians detained by Israel, even those held without charge, were labelled as "prisoners". The CfMM said this implied "criminality and reinforc[ed] Israeli government narratives". The BBC was also found to attach the "Hamas-run" qualifier (for example, "Hamas-run health ministry") to Palestinian casualty figures in 1155 articles – almost as many times as the Palestinian death toll was mentioned across BBC articles. The CmFF said this "undermin[ed] Gazan casualties and Palestinian suffering, more generally". When compared with the BBC's coverage of the war in Ukraine, the report states that the broadcaster mentioned Russian war crimes 2.6 times more than Israeli ones and used sympathetic language for Ukrainian victims two times more than for Palestinians. The CfMM called for an independent public review of the BBC's reporting on Gaza. Sharing the report on social media, the CfMM said: "This report is evidence-based, rigorous and damning. The BBC must reform." Commenting on the report, Husam Zomlot, Palestinian ambassador to the UK, said: "In spite of the genocidal rhetoric of the Israeli leadership, the media persisted in projecting an inaccurate equivalence, distorting realities on the ground." READ MORE: BBC issues statement after staff 'held at gunpoint and strip searched' by IDF Meanwhile, Karishma Patel, a former BBC journalist who left the corporation last October because of its Gaza coverage, said: "I could see every editorial failure in this report playing out as it happened, and now the data is utterly clear in supporting what I witnessed." And Francesca Albanese, the UN's special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, said: "Most mainstream media have failed in their most basic duty: they have largely manufactured consent, enabling a genocide in real time." The BBC has been contacted for comment.
