I have recently published a report into BBC coverage of the Israel-Hamas War. The findings are strengthened by bringing together traditional forensic analysis of nine million words of BBC output with a Big Data AI dive into the same material. Each technique strengthens the other when combined.
Our findings reveal a remarkably high level of bias in BBC reporting of the Middle East. Few readers will be surprised by that result, albeit they might be surprised by the extent of the bias. And it is far worse in BBC Arabic than BBC English.
Neither will readers be surprised by the BBC’s knee-jerk rejection of our findings, albeit they will be amused by the fact that the chairman of the BBC – to whom I had, in fact, sent the report – wrote to me requesting a copy, some 48 hours after the BBC had given its views on the content. This Alice in Wonderland “verdict first, evidence later” approach is one which will be familiar to anyone who has wasted their time sending the BBC a formal complaint. But the problem is in fact worse.
The most worrying finding in the report, gleaned from interviews with senior past and present personnel at the BBC, is the revelation that the BBC, in fact, has no methodology whatever for ensuring compliance with its own Editorial Guidelines. They don’t set targets for balance; they don’t tell journalists and editors what target to aim for, because there is no target; they don’t reprimand staff who have failed to meet the non-existing target; and they don’t monitor output anyway, so have no tools for telling whether they might have missed a target, even were they to have set one, which they didn’t do anyway. As a result, the BBC is effectively at the mercy of the personal whims and biases of individual journalists.
Some journalists appear to have malevolent views, but it is management that is at fault. Malevolent, biased journalists should be reprimanded; moved to Gardeners’ Question Time; or dismissed. BBC management needs to take back control, or as the independent Thomas Review said, it needs to get a grip.
Two points emerge. Firstly, when the BBC tells people, who complain, that it is “balanced over time” this is at best wishful thinking, and perhaps worse. Given the BBC’s failure to monitor its output for bias, when it declares it is achieving impartiality it displays a reckless disregard for the truth of that assertion. For in truth it has no idea.
Secondly, it raises a value-for-money question. Our report shows, through application of traditional forensic skills, buttressed by careful AI experiments, that the BBC is failing badly to comply with the Editorial Guidelines. That failure breaks its promise with the British people to provide accurate and impartial news. Can the BBC continue to justify £4billion of public money if it breaks its most sacred promise?
Trevor Asserson, senior partner of Asserson, Israel’s largest international law firm, has founded Campaign for Media Standards. The Report can be found at CampaignforMediaStandards.org.uk
