BBC Breaches Policy to Hurt Israel
The British Broadcasting Corp. (bbc) broke its editorial guidelines 1,553 times in biased coverage of Israel while reporting on the Israel-Hamas War from October 7 to February 7, according to a report published September 1.
Why it matters: These findings illustrate an ominous trend in Western media: pro-Iran, anti-Israel favoritism.
Details: Trevor Asserson, a British lawyer now in Israel, led a team of 20 lawyers and 20 data scientists to use artificial intelligence to analyze 9 million words the bbc published. They found that the publicly funded bbc:
- Associated Israel with genocide 14 times more than Hamas
- Portrayed Israel as an aggressive militaristic nation
- Downplayed the role of Hamas’s terrorism in the war
- Failed to label Hamas a terrorist organization 12,050 times
The report also specified the bbc’s Arabic channel as one of the most biased outlets covering the war.
- The bbc used a journalist who called October 7 a “morning of hope.”
- In March, the corporation faced pressure to suspend a reporter who reportedly liked social media posts of people celebrating the October 7 attack.
- Another staffer made several social media posts calling Jews “Nazi apartheid parasites.”
The bbc’s responsibility as a public service broadcaster is to deliver news without bias. 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 toward one side. … Such conduct not only breaches the bbc’s Royal Charter but also calls into question its suitability for continued public funding.
—Trevor Asserson
The bbc said it would “carefully consider” the report, but it questioned Asserson’s methods.
Prophesied prejudice: The Bible reveals the roots of the modern bias against Jews. Read “The Media’s Betrayal of Israel” to understand.
