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November 11, 2003
Light...and darkness

First, the good news. The BBC has appointed a former news executive, Malcolm Balen, to monitor its Middle East coverage for anti-Israel bias. Of course, this may be merely a PR stunt (I can't help wondering whether this is entirely unconnected to the forthcoming Hutton inquiry report, which might just throw the entire Manual for Trainee Journalists at them). If Mr Balen is an effective monitor, it would take a truly Herculean effort to clean out these particular Augean stables. And of course, the BBC denies that its coverage has been in any way wrong -- perish the thought. But this is the first time the Beeb has ever suggested that possibly there might just conceivably be the slightest suggestion of a small problem here, somewhere. So let's be cautiously optimistic.

Now the bad news. The extraordinary malice displayed towards Israel by both Reuters and Associated Press, the news agencies whose reports go straight into news items around the world, continues unchecked. On Saturday, AP drew up a chronology of terror attacks around the world. Guess what country was totally omitted? You got it. Reuters did the same thing, listing attacks in Pakistan, Tunisia, Yemen, Bali, Kenya, Chechen attacks in Moscow and attacks against Indians in Bombay -- but no terror attacks in Israel.

Israeli victims of terror have thus been rendered invisible. If the BBC were to draw attention to this... now then we really would be making progress.

Posted by melanie at November 11, 2003

Comments

I was in the studio audience for LWT's Jonathan Dimbleby programme on sunday, with Geoff Hoon. The prog was a breath of fresh air. There was just one nasty comment from a muslim near me about 'zionist government' in the warmup (we had a ten minute practice) in response to a comment I made about intervening in Uganda and Kosovo (totally unconnected with Israel!!), but that was it. I was very impressed with the audience selection - a great contrast with BBC Question Time. The LWT researchers really did try to get all shades represented - pro-War, anti-War, Israel-sympathetic, Muslim - eg they used quite a detailed screening questionnaire over the phone and approached organisations to send people. And they deliberately did not invite groups who they thought would yell/heckle.
>
By contrast I was in the Question Time audience earlier this year (may 8 I think). The previous week there had been no QT o/a local elections but the week before it had come from Dubai. The comments were fiercely anti-Israel, only James Rubin spoke sense. On May 8 we had the chance to speak to the producer. i asked him when QT wd be broadcast from israel. The response was "good idea but we will have to wait until further progress on the roadmap to peace". How much more nakedly biassed could they be? I have pointed this out to Malcom Balen, we'll see if things get better.

Posted by: Jonathan Hoffman at November 12, 2003 11:01 PM

What do you expect, The BBC is still influenced by the Arabists at the FO.

The Liberal media are anti-semitic and it's got worse the last 6 years.

I got sent an honest reporting missive sometime ago and have subscribed as what I read made sense when I checked it out.
www.honestreporting.com


I am not Jewish and deplore injustice no matter where it is found in the world.
It is clear to me that the western media have an agenda to demonise Israel and Jewish people.
The fact that such a large % of movers and shakers in that world are secular Jews makes that even more ironic.

Can you have such self hatred in a group subculture?

Maybe the fundamentalist Christians are right in their predictions (or their book is).
It all seems to be heading towards a conflict to destroy Israel.

We all behave hypocritically sometimes but for the fifth estate to do so is worse, due to their influence over ideas and worldviews.
Mike

Posted by: Mike at November 13, 2003 01:46 AM

Re Jonathan Hoffman's comments above
I noticed a big difference from previous Dimpleby programmes.
I thought that perhaps Hoon had fixed the audience (they were more sympathetic to him than is the media).
Perhaps as Mr hoffman suggests, the programme makers have become aware of the previous unrepresentative audiences & introduced a better vetting programme.

Posted by: rob at November 13, 2003 11:15 AM