IT’S like there’s some kind of competition to see who can do the most damage to the BBC. It looked for a while that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand were building an unassailable lead – but then came the decision not to broadcast the Disasters Emergency Committee’s appeal for aid in Gaza and Director-General Mark Thompson made a late bid to steal the pranksters’ crown.
The BBC’s decision not to give free airtime to the national appeal on behalf of all those suffering a grave humanitarian crisis has given more ammunition to those who jump on any BBC-bashing bandwagon.
The justifications for the decision – question marks about the delivery of aid “in a volatile situation” and risks of compromising its impartiality in the context of an ongoing news story’ – are cowardly and in danger of being seen to be politically motivated in favour of Israel.
It is entirely inappropriate that politicians such as International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander should try to influence the BBC’s editorial policy, but it is also important the BBC listens to its own journalists. Instead of doing that, the corporation has threatened those who have sought to speak out. They may be able to silence individuals, but they cannot hide the damage the decision has done to the BBC’s hard-won reputation for impartiality.
In May 2008, the Myanmar cyclone appeal was broadcast in spite of an “ongoing news story” involving the government of Burma. Why should Israel be treated differently?
But it is. I’ve had emails from senior BBC journalists who say this decision makes the BBC look pro-Israeli and indifferent to the plight of 1.5 million Palestinian victims and those who say the BBC has breached its own rules on impartiality.
As a journalists’ union, we above all understand the BBC’s need to maintain impartiality. However, we also understand the pressure journalists and the BBC come under from all sides who accuse the corporation of bias in reporting the Middle East.
Yet this appears to be a decision taken not as a result of real concerns over impartiality, but as a result of timidity by BBC management in the face of such pressures – what Tim Llewellyn, a former BBC Middle East correspondent, described as institutional cowardice in a body of lions led by donkeys.
That sums up BBC management over too many issues. Self-flagellation is in vogue in Auntie’s corridors of power. And now the corporation is backed in to a corner. If they react to those of us calling for a review of the decision, they will inevitably be accused by those who applaud the present decision of bowing to political pressure.
At the heart of this crisis are 1,300 Palestinians killed and many thousands injured. Hospitals have been overwhelmed and thousands are homeless, schools have been destroyed. Power, food and water supplies are insufficient to cover the population’s needs.
The DEC’s appeal is about providing food, blankets, bedding, shelter materials, drugs and medical supplies, drinking water and child protection programmes. How can airing such an appeal risk compromising the BBC’s impartiality?
Does the BBC management think journalists covering stories in Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iraq or other countries will be easier or will their journalists’ professional reputation and personal safety be increasingly jeopardised by a corporation seen to turn its back on the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people?
But we should be careful how we respond. This week, I witnessed protestors outside Broadcasting House chanting: “BBC hear us say, how many kids have you killed today?” Well, none. It is not true, as many anti-war groups have claimed, that the BBC has “capitulated to the Israeli lie machine”. There has been some excellent journalism during this conflict by BBC and other journalists, despite the Israeli ban on foreign reporters entering Gaza and the arrest and the killing of five Palestinian journalists.
And those who threaten a boycott of the BBC licence fee are mistaken. Those on the right have spent years trying to undermine BBC funding for their own political and commercial self-interest. We shouldn’t fall into the trap of destroying the BBC in the long term because of heartfelt, but short-term, anger at this decision.
Far better we concentrate our efforts on forcing the BBC to make public the Balen Report, an investigation into BBC coverage of the Middle East which the corporation’s managers are fighting to keep under wraps – and to act on its findings. That way impartiality is protected and the BBC strengthened.
Jeremy Dear is general secretary of the National Union of Journalists
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