BBC Bias? Yes, but not how you think.

When four of the greatest legal minds this country has to offer decide to take a stand it makes sense for the rest of us to sit up and listen.

Last week Lord Wolfson KC, Lord Pannick KC, Lord Grabiner KC and Jeremy Brier KC asked Ofcom to investigate the BBC over their reporting of the attacks on Israel. In particular they said that the Corporation demonstrated bias by describing Hamas attackers as ‘militants’ rather than ‘terrorists’.

Surely this is fair enough? As the authors point out, Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation so the definition would be fitting.

Of course it is a deliberate short-sightedness that permits these barristers to rely on a definition derived from statute. The BBC, as a news organisation in its own right, has other considerations to make; not least the aim to be objective and the safety of its journalists on the ground.

In a short podcast the BBC explained why the word ‘terrorist’ is not used in its reporting but the BBC’s own guidelines make things clear:

“11.3.6 The word ‘terrorist’ itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding. We should convey to our audience the full consequences of the act by describing what happened. We should use words which specifically describe the perpetrator such as ‘bomber’, ‘attacker’, ‘gunman’, ‘kidnapper’, ‘insurgent’ and ‘militant’. We should not adopt other people’s language as our own; our responsibility is to remain objective and report in ways that enable our audiences to make their own assessments about who is doing what to whom.”

I think that the most interesting thing about this story is that the BBC has been individually picked out from all other news organisations.

The policy outlined above is also followed by ITV, Sky and Channel 4 yet it is the BBC that received the opprobrium from the four barristers. Our duty as critical legal thinkers ourselves is to ask why this might be the case.

It may just be that the complainants hold the BBC to a higher standard as the national broadcaster but, whether intentionally or not, the authors play into the hands of the current Conservative government who seek to demonise the corporation at every turn.

In response to the attacks by Hamas, Israel is launching an offensive that is bringing Gaza to its knees and causing a humanitarian crisis.

The head of UN Aid says that the hospital system is “collapsing before our eyes” as the region lacks water, fuel and basic medical supplies.

Nor is the collapse of healthcare provision merely an unintended consequence of reprise against militants.

A depopulation order was issued by Israel telling the million-or-so people in North Gaza to head South within 24 hours or face dire consequences. The order is an attempt to do the least possible to pay lip service to international law but even then air strikes take place on convoys leaving the region. In one, 70 people were killed, mostly women and children making their way to safety. This evening the UN Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, said 14 staff members, mainly teachers, have been killed.

However Israel wants to dress it up, this is the collective punishment of a population in contravention of international law.

How does the BBC respond to this?

Well it might have given the impression above that it is sticking firmly to its editorial guidelines but after pressure from politicians as well as lawyers, the cracks are beginning to show.

While it might continue to shy away from the term ‘terrorist’ the BBC takes pains to point out at every turn that Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation and so the policy is undermined, if not scuppered, on a regular basis.

Beyond this the journalist Jonathan Cook has pointed out other problems with the language used by the BBC:

“[W]hen liberal media report on the catastrophe unfolding in Gaza, potentially another Nakba, they invariably frame it exclusively in the language of humanitarianism. Typifying this approach, the BBC’s Lyse Doucet recently described the people of Gaza as facing a “dire humanitarian crisis” – as though they had just suffered an earthquake.  

“Israel's 16-year blockade of Palestinians by land, sea and air, starving them and keeping them caged with snipers at their prison fence, is presented as some unfortunate act of god. 

“In another glaring misrepresentation of the reality faced by Palestinians – all the more striking because it contrasts so starkly with the BBC’s sensitivity to Israelis’ suffering – presenter Clive Myrie described the mood of people in Gaza on Friday night as "anxious".

“This was as more than one million of them were being forced to leave their homes, pick their way through rubble to get south, as bombs rained down unpredictably, without food or electricity and no obvious destination or place to shelter safely. 

“The idea that these people were "anxious" – a feeling I had just from watching the pictures from Gaza – would have been laughable had it not been so profoundly offensive.”

International law struggles with the term ‘terrorist’ because it carries with it an overtly moral judgment with political and ideological connotations. Nevertheless it is generally accepted that states themselves can be terrorist actors. It is hard to imagine any cogent definition of the word that would not include the bombing of Dresden by Britain during World War II or the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima or Nagasaki by the U.S. at the end of the war.

The BBC is never going to describe Israel as a terrorist actor despite the ongoing offensive that is having devastating consequences on a population that is already vulnerable.

Nevertheless the bias of the corporation as it caves to pressure is increasingly obvious even as things get worse for ordinary Palestinians.

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This week on the podcast the PPI scandal that affected banking customers returns to the courts as two claimants challenge the deadline imposed.

Episode link: https://uklawweekly.com/2023-uksc-34/

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