Over 100 BBC employees accuse broadcaster of pro-Israel bias

Over 100 BBC employees signed a letter addressed to Director General of the BBC Tim Davie, demanding the broadcaster “recommit to fairness, accuracy, and impartiality” in reporting on the Israel-Hamas War, the Independent reported on Friday. 

The letter accused the BBC of failing to provide “consistently fair and accurate evidence-based journalism in its coverage of Gaza.”

Signatories demanded that the BBC include in every article that “Israel does not give external journalists access to Gaza; making it clear when there is insufficient evidence to back up Israeli claims; making clear where Israel is the perpetrator in article headlines; including regular historical context predating October 2023; and robustly challenging Israeli government and military representatives in all interviews.”

The October 2023 date referred to in the letter is likely a reference to October 7, when Hamas launched a massacre in southern Israel. Some 1200 people were killed by invading terrorists, and Hamas abducted over 250 people, kickstarting a war in Gaza that has, according to UN officials, created a humanitarian crisis. 

The BBC rejected the signatories's collective claims, stating that the broadcaster “strives to live up to our responsibility to deliver the most trusted and impartial news.”

A spokesperson told the Independent, “When we make mistakes or have made changes to how we report, we are transparent. We are also very clear with our audiences on the limitations put on our reporting – including the lack of access into Gaza and restricted access to parts of Lebanon, and our continued efforts to get reporters into those areas.”

“I have never, in my entire career, witnessed such low levels of staff confidence,” a staffer told the British newspaper. “I have colleagues who have left the BBC in recent months because they just don’t believe our reporting on Israel and Palestine is honest. So many of us feel paralyzed by the levels of fear.”

“Palestinians are always treated as an unreliable source, and we constantly give Israel’s version of events primacy despite the IDF’s well-documented track record of lying,” another staffer said. “We often seem to prefer to leave Israel out of the headline if at all possible or cast doubt on who could be to blame for airstrikes. The verification level expected for anything related to Gaza hugely outweighs the norm for other countries.”

The BBC said in response to the raised concerns, “This conflict is one of the most polarising stories to report on, and we know people feel very strongly about how this is being reported, not only on the BBC but across all media. The BBC holds itself to very high standards, and we strive to live up to our responsibility to deliver the most trusted and impartial news – weighing and measuring the words we use, verifying facts, and seeking a wide range of interviews and expert opinions.”

While acknowledging that the “BBC does not and cannot reflect any single world view,” a spokesperson insisted to the Independent that it receives an almost equal measure of complaints asserting bias towards Israel as bias against it.

They added, “This does not mean we assume we are doing something right, and we continue to listen to all criticism – from inside and outside the BBC – and reflect on what we can do better.”

BBC accused of anti-Israel bias

As mentioned by the spokesperson, the BBC has been repeatedly accused of holding an anti-Israel bias and having an issue with systemic antisemitism. 

Over 200 BBC staff, contractors, suppliers, and contributors wrote to the board and BBC Chairman Samir Shah, the BBC chairman, in July asking for an investigation into the broadcaster’s alleged “anti-Jewish racism.” 

Shah refused the investigation request, and claimed that the the corporation is “successful” in creating an “inclusive working environment where people from all backgrounds feel welcome, safe and supported.”

“I am satisfied, however, that where we have made errors, the executive have acted appropriately and handled matters in accordance to the guidance as they apply to my colleagues,” Shah said. “Following your correspondence, I have asked the executive to review the papers you sent and to see if there’s anything included that has not been previously considered.”  

The Telegraph also published a report last month, based on research led by British lawyer Trevor Asserson, which found that the broadcaster breached its own editorial guidelines over 1500 times during coverage of the war. 

The research found that there was a “deeply worrying pattern of bias against Israel” and that Israel was associated with genocide 14 times more than the Hamas terror group was throughout the analyzed BBC coverage.

“Our analysis reveals a significant deviation from this standard, especially in its reporting on the Israel-Hamas conflict, where the broadcaster showed a clear partiality towards one side. This bias was even more pronounced in the BBC’s Arabic content,”  Asserson said. “Such conduct not only breaches the BBC’s Royal Charter but also calls into question its suitability for continued public funding.”

As referenced by Asserson, the BBC’s Arabic service has come under repeated fire. Former guests of BBC Arabic claimed to have experienced mistreatment when engaging with the broadcaster. 

Yoseph Haddad, an Arab-Israeli with a large online presence, claimed in March “They fail to comply with journalistic standards; their coverage is unbalanced. One of the anchors stopped me in mid-sentence while I was talking about the issue of sexual violence and rape and scolded me, arguing that there was no evidence.

“In another instance, I talked about the viral videos of Gazans complaining that Hamas is hiding among them and using them as human shields, and the anchor outright denied the existence of these videos. Their questions are pre-formulated against me specifically or against Israel – they rarely want to expose the truth; rather they seek to tackle me personally. And of course, they don’t refer to Hamas as a terrorist organization, which is true for their English-speaking channels as well.”

Idit Bar, a researcher and lecturer for the Arab world and Arabic language, told the Jerusalem Post’s Ohad Merlin in March that she had a similar experience to Haddad.

Bar claimed that she received less time to speak than her fellow panelists and “Sometimes the anchors themselves take the liberty to respond to my comments to other panelists, instead of acting somehow neutral and allowing the others to respond.”

“The last thing they’re interested in is listening to Israeli guests. Sometimes, the facilitators add their personal opinion as if it were a fact or as part of the formulation of their question. At other times, when I finished a comment, they added a personal comment against me without even allowing me to respond and immediately moved on to the next question,” she testified. “When I push back, they do everything to prevent me from completing my point, either by repeated interruptions or by changing to another subject. For example, I showed one moderator a screenshot showing a Palestinian flag waving next to the Nazi flag and added that some Palestinians sympathize with the Nazis. The moderator immediately interrupted me and changed the subject: ‘And what about the siege? And what about the attacks on al-Aqsa Mosque?’”

OHAD MERLIN, JERUSALEM POST STAFF contributed to this report.