Ofcom’s report, released on Monday, sparked relief in the Jewish community — and horror in Broadcasting House. Here are its main points.

The key ruling: “We considered that the BBC made a serious editorial misjudgement by not reporting on air that the claim it had made in the broadcast was disputed, once the new evidence emerged.”

During the investigation, Ofcom uncovered just how hard the BBC had worked to justify its initial version of events. But the broadcaster’s deep uncertainty about its facts was not reflected in its coverage.

At first, the report says, a BBC “network news editor” flagged that he “could hear the phrase ‘dirty Muslims’ in the audio recording”. The BBC claimed at least seven people in its newsroom confirmed hearing the same.

Within hours, complaints flooded in, saying the audio actually contained the Hebrew phrase “tikra lemishehu, ze dachuf”, meaning “call someone, it’s urgent”.

The BBC attempted retroactively to corroborate its version of events rather than to acknowledge that it was disputed.

The report reveals how in private, the BBC created “an equalised version” of the audio for “internal use,” calling on several top executives to listen to it: the news output controller, head of journalism, duty news editor, senior figures in the newsroom and a “senior Jewish colleague with a working understanding of Hebrew” were all asked to give their opinion.

BBC Executives even sent the specially engineered audio file to their Jerusalem bureau. “A Hebrew-speaking contact” said the audio was not clear, but they had heard the Hebrew.

However, the Jerusalem Bureau Chief — who the JC understands is not a Hebrew speaker — maintained that she heard “dirty Muslims”.

Still uncertain, the BBC contracted a “highly reputable” firm of translators to transcribe any Hebrew they could hear in the video. Three of the four heard “dirty Muslims”, while the fourth heard the Hebrew. Overall, the results were inconclusive.

Within the BBC there was no consensus. Hebrew speakers seemed more likely to identify something different from English speakers. But the broadcaster didn’t mention any of this to the public.

The article remained unchanged for nearly eight weeks.

Lack of personal accountability: “It was agreed amongst the BBC London team that comments on the bus should be included in the story.”

Who actually wrote the offensive line? Who decided to suppress the alternative interpretations? Who presented the BBC’s interpretation of the recording as definitive? We simply do not know. No individual is named by Ofcom nor held responsible for any of the failings.

The JC has learnt that early on, an internal complaint was made about the coverage by members of BBC staff. This quickly received attention from senior executives in the corporation, including then-senior controller of BBC News’ output and commissioning, Jamie Angus, who rejected the complaint.

Mr Angus has since left the BBC to take on a senior role at the Saudi channel Al Arabiya News, which was fined £120,000 by Ofcom in 2018 for broadcasting “confessions” by an imprisoned Bahraini opposition leader without making clear he had been tortured.

Belated admission: The BBC told Ofcom that its coverage “should have acknowledged an element of doubt… at an earlier point”.

The broadcaster also accepted that “the report commissioned by the BBC did not result in unanimity”.

But in a letter to the JC, the BBC had doubled down on its allegation that “the slur” was spoken in English, making no mention of those who took a different view.

If the BBC was able to admit its failings at the start of Ofcom’s investigation, why had it refused to do so when questioned by the JC?

Complaints system failure: “The BBC could — and should — have acted much more promptly and transparently in responding to the issues.”

The BBC’s failure to admit its uncertainty in the face of complaints created an impression of defensiveness by the BBC, the Ofcom report points out.

It took 54 days and an avalanche of dissent and technical analysis before the BBC finally admitted that its allegation against the victims of the attack was “disputed”.
Ofcom referenced the Serota Review, published only two months before the BBC’s coverage of Oxford Street, mentioning the broadcaster’s “culture of defensiveness” and a perceived “rush to immediate defence of BBC content and an unwillingness to admit mistakes”.

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BBC director-general Tim Davie

The regulator said it “remains concerned” about how the BBC handled the initial complaints which “resulted in significant distress and anxiety to the Jewish community and community stakeholders.”

It said the BBC “must be more transparent and open about its decision-making,” urging the government to consider this issue as part of its mid-term review of the BBC Charter.

Glimmer of light for BBC: “We did not consider there to be sufficient evidence to find the broadcast in breach of the Code’s due impartiality rules.”

While Ofcom said the BBC had failed to observe its Editorial Guidelines on due impartiality and due accuracy for the online report, it said the television report had not breached those rules. It said that at the time of broadcast the BBC did not know of the disputed interpretation of the audio.

Despite this, the BBC had made a “serious editorial misjudgment by not reporting on air at any point that the claim it had made in the news broadcast was disputed, once the new evidence emerged,” Ofcom concluded.

We are happy to make clear that the BBC made a full apology for failings in relation to this matter in January 2022, following the findings of its own Executive Complaints Unit.

Those findings were consistent with those of Ofcom, which published its report in November 2022 at which point the BBC reiterated its apology. Ofcom stated there had been “a significant failure to observe its editorial guidelines to report news with due accuracy and due impartiality”. The BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit found the reporting “fell below expected standards of due accuracy and impartiality”. 

We accept these points were not made clear in original reporting (in November 2022) nor had the BBC been “maintaining the fiction that its reporting was word perfect” ahead of Ofcom’s report. Further, there was no finding of guilt by Ofcom, nor a breach of the broadcasting code.