Further to my post below, 'Attitudes to genocide', a reader has sent me the following correspondence that he had with BBC Online:

'Sir I'd like to bring to your attention a graphic example of why the BBC receives much criticism with regard to its reporting on the Middle East conflict. As I write this letter, the BBC has on its website, two articles about killings in the Middle East and Africa. One story, about a single Palestinian man killed while he approached a border fence is entitled "Israelis Shoot Dead Palestinian". The other story, about 100 people killed in a bombing raid by the Sudanese government is entitled "Sudan Troops in Darfur Offensive". The details on the killings do not appear in the headline nor in the following paragraph printed in bold. If this example of unbalanced reporting were an aberration, one might suggest that it was due perhaps, to poor discretion being exercised by BBC website editors on this occasion. This type of asymmetric reporting however, is routine for the BBC. When Israelis are involved in the deaths of Palestinians -- one in this case --, the BBC employs direct, active language in the headline and body of its articles to describe the incident and assign unambiguous culpability to Israel. By contrast, when reporting on the killings of Israelis by Palestinians -- or in this case, the murder of 100 civilians by the government of Sudan -- the language is typically passive and circumspect. As a frequent reader of the BBC website (and a TV license payer in the UK), I find the BBC's bias transparent and deeply offensive. It also represent a clear violation of your public charter to be fair and balanced in your reporting'.

This was the BBC's reply:

'As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the conflict in Darfur take place in completely different contexts, it is clear that different editorial approaches need to be taken. The Middle East editorial team tries - as far as possible - to address each deadly act of Israeli-Palestinian violence in a balanced and objective way, with a focus the team tries to apply to all the countries in its region, even Iraq. That close-up focus is much less likely in African conflicts of which Darfur is an example which are dealt with by the Africa editorial team. In addition, headlines are not to used to assign culpability, but rather to sum up the story in as brief a way as possible (in a template of 31-33 characters). This inevitably results in an avoidance of longer words, which may be why there may be a slight imbalance. Nevertheless a search through the BBC News website archive produces headlines where:

1. Palestinians are killed without mentioning an agent:

Five Palestinians killed in Gaza (30/12/2004)

2. Israelis are killed with an agent mentioned:

Suicide blasts kill 11 Israelis (14/03/2004)

3. And where there have been multiple (Palestinian) deaths which are not mentioned in the headline

Major Israeli incursion in Gaza (25/10/2004)

To which the irate license-fee payer replied in turn:

1. Why should the "focus" of BBC reporting be different for the Middle East than for Africa such that your ME editorial team takes a "close-up focus" while your African editorial team takes a -- presumably -- "remote" focus? Do the deaths of 100 Sudanese merit less personal attention than the death of one Palestinian?

2. The suggestion that the substantive difference in headlines is due to space limitations is risible. Please note that the headline, "Israelis Shoot Dead Palestinian" contains 31 characters while the headline "Sudan Troops in Darfur Offensive" contains 32 characters. The latter headline could have just as easily read, "Sudan Army kills 100 in Darfur" which would have required only 30 characters and would have been a far more accurate rendering of the incident.

3. The headline you have provided as an example of the BBC identifying an agent, "Suicide blasts kill 11 Israelis" (14/03/2004), does nothing of the sort. In fact, it overtly fails to identify a Palestinian as the perpetrator of the murders.

As demonstrated, your arguments attempting to justify the different handling of the two stories are weak and facile. The truth is that the BBC maintains a distinct editorial bias when reporting news of the conflict in the Middle East, deliberately maligning the Israelis whenever possible. This is an odious practice for any news organisation, but particularly so for one funded by the taxpayer and pledged to a policy of fair and impartial reporting'.

Further comment is superfluous.

Posted by melanie at February 4, 2005