The BBC is fourteen times more likely to accuse Israel of genocide than Hamas, a study of its coverage of the conflict has shown.
The report which analysed the BBC’s output across different platforms over a four-month period found a ‘deeply worrying pattern of bias’ against Israel.
The research, led by British lawyer Trevor Asserson, revealed the BBC associated Israel with genocide 283 times compared to 19 times for Hamas – a 14 fold difference.
It also found the BBC breached its own editorial guidelines more than 1,500 times in the four-month period from October 7.
It comes as former executive Danny Cohen warned on Saturday that there was now an ‘institutional crisis’ at the BBC, The Telegraph has reported.
And two leading Jewish groups, the Campaign Against Antisemitism and the National Jewish Assembly, have since joined calls for an independent review into the broadcaster’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.
An anti BBC placard is seen at the anti-Semitism march on November 26 last year
Hundreds of protesters take part in ‘March Against Antisemitism’ march in central London
Members of the Jewish community gather outside BBC Broadcasting House to demonstrate against the BBC’s refusal to label Hamas as terrorists
The Asserson report looked at BBC output across television, radio, online news, podcasts and social media during a four-month period beginning October 7 last year.
The research was carried out by a team of 20 lawyers and 20 data scientists who used artificial intelligence to analyse nine million words of BBC coverage.
A total of 1,553 breaches of the BBC’s guidelines were identified, including impartiality, accuracy, editorial values and public interest.
The report read: ‘The findings reveal a deeply worrying pattern of bias and multiple breaches by the BBC of its own editorial guidelines on impartiality, fairness and establishing the truth.’
The BBC’s Arabic Channel was singled out in the report as one of the ‘most-biased’ media outlets in its coverage of the war.
In total, it was found that the broadcaster’s output associated Israel with war crimes four times more than Hamas, with genocide 14 times more and with breaching international law six times more.
It also raised concerns about the number of journalists at the corporation who have previously shown sympathy with the terrorist organisation.
The report found 11 cases where the coverage was done by reporters who allegedly had made public statements in support of Hamas.
Pro-Israeli demonstrators gather outside the headquarters of the BBC to protest about the corporation’s coverage of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas
A man holds an Israeli flag outside the BBC’s headquarters during a protest
A member of the Jewish community holds a poster outside the BBC
In March, it emerged that BBC journalists behind one damning report which accused Israeli soldiers of beating medics at a Gaza hospital had ‘liked’ videos celebrating Hamas terror attacks and anti-Israel posts online.
The story initially led to worldwide condemnation of Israel, and was called ‘very disturbing’ by Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron who called for ‘answers’.
However The Mail on Sunday later revealed concerns about the views of two BBC Arabic reporters, Soha Ibrahim and Marie-Jose Al Azzi, who were credited with working on the story.
Earlier that month, Ms Ibrahim liked a video on X of Palestine Action activists slashing an oil painting of former British prime minister Arthur Balfour, who helped pave the way for the creation of Israel.
On the day of the Hamas attacks on October 7, she ‘liked’ videos of people in Lebanon and Tunisia chanting, dancing and waving Palestinian flags in the street in apparent celebration.
Meanwhile Ms Al Azzi, who has worked at the BBC since 2019 and is based in Lebanon, described Israel as a ‘terrorist apartheid state’ in a post from 2018 that has since been deleted, according to anti-Semitism researchers.
A former attorney general also previously claimed that the BBC is ‘institutionally anti-Semitic’ and has inflamed community tensions due to its ‘biased’ reporting of the Gaza conflict.
Sir Michael Ellis said the BBC’s impartiality had been brought into ‘disrepute’ over its coverage of Israel and Hamas.
Opening a Westminster Hall debate on the subject in February, he warned that the corporation’s reporting had ‘fuelled the appalling rise of anti-Semitism’ and ‘harmed diplomatic efforts to bring an end to the violence’.
Police maintain a heavy presence at a protest outside the BBC
Members of the Jewish community gather outside BBC Broadcasting House to demonstrate against the BBC’srefusal to label Hamas as terrorists
A woman holds a sign in protest against the BBC’s coverage of the Hamas-Israel war
Pro-Israeli demonstrators gather outside the headquarters of the BBC to protest about the corporation’s coverage of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas
Members of the National Jewish Assembly (NJA) protest outside the BBC headquarters in London,
A BBC spokesperson said: ‘We have serious questions about the methodology of this report, particularly its heavy reliance on AI to analyse impartiality, and its interpretation of the BBC’s editorial guidelines.
‘We don’t think coverage can be assessed solely by counting particular words divorced from context.
‘We are required to achieve due impartiality, rather than the ‘balance of sympathy’ proposed in the report, and we believe our knowledgeable and dedicated correspondents are achieving this, despite the highly complex, challenging and polarising nature of the conflict.
‘However, we will consider the report carefully and respond directly to the authors once we have had time to study it in detail.
‘The most recent research shows that audiences are significantly more likely to turn to the BBC for impartial coverage than to any other provider. Independent research from More in Common found that the highest proportion of people thought BBC coverage of this story was mostly neutral.’
They added: ‘We strongly reject the claims that our reporters ‘celebrated acts of terror’ and we strongly reject the attack on individual members of BBC staff, all of whom are working to the same editorial guidelines.’
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk