Study calls out BBC for anti-Israel bias

For months, dozens of lawyers and data analysis experts have sat down to examine from a professional perspective how the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has covered the war in Gaza since the October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas. Trevor Asserson, a British-Israeli lawyer with extensive experience in challenging the BBC’s biased coverage of Israel. He and his team collected material, transcribed podcasts, watched video broadcasts, translated material from the BBC Arabic service and reviewed the 9 million word database they had created. The result: a comprehensive, 200-page report submitted to British authorities over the weekend, a scathing indictment of a “deeply disturbing pattern of bias” by the national broadcaster.

Asserson (67) moved to Israel from Britain more than three decades ago. He is a lawyer and the founder and general partner of Asserson Law Firm, an international law firm of approximately 60 lawyers working in commercial law and dispute resolution worldwide. He had already waged a high-profile battle against the BBC’s coverage of the Second Intifada in the early 2000s. This led to a shelved internal report (as well as an expensive legal battle to prevent publication at the expense of the British taxpayer — AU), but it reinforced the view that the British network had a problem covering Israel.

After the terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7, the BBC’s reporting was mocked on Israeli television’s satirical comedy show Eretz Nehederet (“Wonderland”), but its biased coverage continued unabated. Asserson decided it was time to return to the offense. In an interview with Globes on November 29, 2023, Asserson said he knew what to do, the necessary procedures to file a formal complaint with the network, and how to systematically substantiate his claims. Now the test is over, and the result represents a failing grade in one area where the network strives to project a perfect image—fair, unbiased coverage.

The findings speak for themselves, Asserson says. Israel was linked to the term “war crimes” 592 times (in the four months since October 7) in the BBC report, compared to just 98 times in the context of Hamas – almost six times to Israel’s detriment. In addition, the BBC flatly refused to recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization in its original report; after public and political pressure, he agreed to designate Hamas a “proscribed terrorist organization” “where possible”. However, the study found that the network actually did so only 7.7% of the time. The report lists more than 1,500 violations of the network’s own editorial guidelines for accuracy and balance.

“What’s surprising is how bad it was,” Asserson told The Globe this week, “and how terrible BBC Arabic is – it’s just a platform for Hamas.”

The report attempts “sympathy analysis,” which involves many variables, including framing, use of certain terms, use of images, engagement with partisan topics, and more. Analysis was performed by both human reviewers and validated artificial intelligence tools. The report shows, for example, that on the BBC’s English-language website, sympathy for Palestinians is twice as high as for Israelis (the balance varies between 62% and 66%).

As noted, a large part of the report is devoted to BBC Arabic, which, according to Asserson and his team, has deep problems, including the identification of some staff with Hamas, statements in favor of the destruction of Israel, and biased coverage. Does not comply with British media public standards (Ofcom Standards and Fairness Codes). BBC Arabic even showed that 90% of its internet articles and videos were pro-Palestinian during the murderous attack on Israel on October 7th. According to Asserson, “BBC Arabic was found to be close to Al Jazeera and The Times of Iran in terms of overall sympathy.”

Asserson says pro-Palestinian bias runs deep and dominates most of the network’s broadcasts. “If you look at all the BBC’s main TV news programmes, only three – Newsnight, Breakfast TV and News at Ten – maintain some kind of neutrality. The rest are about 95% anti-Israel.” Among the BBC’s wrongdoings, he mentions the fact that the network used members of Hamas under the guise of “neutral interviewers”.

“The findings reveal a deeply worrying pattern of bias and multiple breaches of the BBC’s own editorial guidelines for impartiality, fairness and establishing truth,” the report said. “As a public service broadcaster, the BBC’s responsibility is to deliver news without bias. Our analysis reveals significant deviations from this standard, particularly in its reporting on the Israel-Hamas conflict, where the broadcaster has shown a clear bias against one side. This bias This was most evident in the BBC’s Arabic content.

The report has caused quite a stir in Britain since it appeared on the cover of The Sunday Telegraph. Conservative politicians are calling on the government to act on the issue, and Jewish organizations fighting anti-Semitism have backed the report’s findings, with some saying the BBC was acting with “zealous arrogance” in not acknowledging the criticism.

“I think the response in the UK has been extraordinarily positive, and so has Israel. There is such widespread distaste and frustration with BBC broadcasting,” Asserson says. The network itself rejected the testing methodology, saying it had “serious questions about the methodology of this report, particularly its heavy reliance on artificial intelligence to analyze bias,” adding that it was “necessary to achieve impartiality” rather than a “sympathy balance,” the report said. proposed… However, we will review the report carefully and respond directly to the authors once we have had time to study it in detail.”

According to Asserson, one of the main problems is that “the BBC has no internal systems to achieve impartiality”. If he were head of the organization, he would “set up independent complaints procedures, set proper management KPIs and hire the necessary management to achieve guidelines,” he says, adding that he would “fire or move a few people.”

The two main BBC personalities the report focuses on are International Editor Jeremy Bowen and Senior Presenter Lyse Doucet (also known to Israeli viewers). 84% of the content in their podcast series was found to be anti-Palestinian or anti-Israel.

In addition to publishing the report, Asserson founded an NGO called the Media Standards Campaign to fight bias in the media, and he told the Globe he would continue the fight. With a team of about 20 lawyers and 20 data analysts, Asserson estimates the work has cost £500,000 (NIS 2.5 million) so far. “A businessman paid the expenses out of his own pocket,” he says. “Most of the work was done for free.”

Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – published on September 11, 2024.

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