BBC and Sky's ‘impartial' coverage of Gaza come under raps!

By Majed Iqbal- Sky News and the BBC came under heavy criticism on their refusal to broadcast an emergency appeal for Gaza by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), an umbrella group of humanitarian charities including Oxfam, Save the Children and the Red Cross, in spite of renewed pressure from the public on the grounds that it would jeopardise their neutrality.



The decision added further to fury to many in Britain who believed that the coverage of the Gaza massacre by the BBC and Sky news amidst many other Western news Corporations leaned more favourably to viewing the whole events through Israeli lenses with considerable airtime offered to people to speak with this angle.

More than 10,000 people protested in central London against the BBC's refusal to air the DEC aid appeal for Gaza which was followed by incidents in the week where BBC buildings in London and Manchester were occupied by protesters.

John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York said "This is not an appeal by Hamas asking for arms but by the Disasters Emergency Committee asking for relief"

Waves of unequivocal support and solidarity for Gaza and voicing condemnation against Israeli terrorism continued with students across the country holding occupations and sit in's.

Students from University of Nottingham, Queen Mary University, London, Sheffield Hallam, Oxford University and Cambridge University staged protests in lecture rooms, some lasting 24 hours, refusing to leave until their universities sided with the Gaza appeal. Similarly, around 100 Bradford students stormed the university boardroom, and had their demands met within 24 hours.

Steven James, an organiser for the UK-based Medical Aid for Palestinians organisation, told Al Jazeera: "This is about helping women, children and civilians caught up in the situation, in a time when they really need aid.

Commenting on the decision on the refusal to broadcast the emergency appeal, John Ryley, Head of Sky News, said: The absolute impartiality of our output is fundamental to Sky News and its journalism. That is why, after very careful consideration, we have concluded that broadcasting an appeal for Gaza at this time is incompatible with our role in providing balanced and objective reporting of this continuing situation to our audiences in the UK and around the world"

The BBC felt pressure growing amongst its own journalists, with sources reporting "widespread disgust" within its newsrooms. Sources have said there was "fury" at a BBC News morning meeting, with news editors saying they had not been consulted about the decision not to show the appeal, which was broadcast on ITV, Channel 4 and Channel Five at a 6.20pm slot.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Thompson denied his "arm had been twisted" by pro-Israeli lobbyists and said the BBC would continue to cover the humanitarian dimension of a "complicated and deeply contentious story".

The talk of impartial media is often projected as the height of journalistic standards, providing balanced and objective reporting to the viewer. However, as is most often seen, there is always a leaning to project a particular view on specific issues

The BBC's current stance coverage of the Gaza massacre falls entirely consistent with the government's narrative which has continuously blamed Hamas as the sole cause for the ‘Crisis'. Since the first day of the Israeli airstrikes on a police graduation ceremony, both the BBC and the British government spoke in unison towing the line of Hamas breaking a ceasefire with claims that Israel was responding to ‘regular' attacks on its border from Gaza.

The BBC, Sky news and the Government specifically choose to portray the events in the Gaza massacre as even handed military conflict, comparing the massacre of 1300 men women and children, mostly unarmed, using phosphorous chemical agent with missile strikes, firing on UN schools, bombing Gaza's basic infrastructure and public utilities, bombing medical ambulances attempting to rescue the killed and injured, rocket strikes on mosques, attacks on trucks delivering relief supplies and killing the drivers and devastating civilian areas causing havoc with the latest weaponry with rocket strikes from Gaza which barely cross over the border.

BBC's and Sky news's stance of impartiality falls short when failing to report about Israel's blockading of Gaza for over a year denying 1.5 million people - about a half of whom are children - access to food, water, medicines. The only line that could be taken was continuously bantering about Hamas and not being representative amongst Palestinians.

Whilst other news outlets like Al-Jazeera, Press TV and Channel 4 out of many, have shown the many gruesome images of decapitated and burned bodies, the BBC was not willing to air these but rather chose to gave as much airtime to reporting the firing of a home-made rockets into Israel, invariably not resulting in death, to Israel's military onslaught which was killing 50-60 Gazan's daily, ensuring that line was compatible with the Governments take. Hence it was understandable why David Milliband, the British Foreign Secretary, could not even find the words to condemn Israel during the first Security Council debate, a day after Israel bombed a UN school.

It is evident that strong relationships with Israel by the British Government are central to its foreign policy and therefore reflect the reportage seen on our screens. In fact In 2007, Britain approved £6 million of arms exports to Israel and in 2008, it licensed sales 12 times as fast: £20m in the first three months alone, much of which is believed to been have used in Israel's genocidal killing of over 1200 Palestinian men, women and children over the last weeks.

Hence, it is clearly understandable when News corporations talk about impartiality that they really mean towing a particular line, no matter if it is the truth or a pack of glorified lies.