Ofcom slams BBC’s 'serious' editorial failures over Chanukah bus attack reporting

Lord Andrew Roberts told the JC: "This welcome decision by Ofcom greatly enhances the calls for a full parliamentary inquiry into BBC bias regarding Israel.

"The BBC, excellent in so many areas, does not recognise its own intense bias in this important one, but an inquiry would force it to examine itself critically, and root out a form of discrimination that it would be the first to highlight with any other group, ethnicity or nationality."

His remarks were echoed by Lord Austin. He said: “This is another reason why the parliamentary inquiry into the BBC’s coverage of antisemitism that the JC has called for is so necessary. The BBC’s reporting of this incident was disgraceful.

"They said the attack and abuse by the thugs outside the bus was 'alleged' but the disputed allegation of a slur inside the bus by frightened children was presented as a fact. And, as usual, the BBC’s senior managers refused to look at it properly. Perhaps if they had listened at the time they might have avoided this ruling.”

Co-Chief Executive of the JLC Claudia Mendoza said: “This is a welcome finding from Ofcom and validates the serious concerns of the Jewish community. We look forward to hearing what actions the BBC will be putting in place to stop this from happening again.”

The JC's call for a parliamentary inquiry comes amid deep concern in the Anglo-Jewish community over a string of reporting errors by the BBC including the use of Abdel Bari Atwan – who has repeatedly praised terrorists – as a high-profile pundit.

Ofcom's statement comes just days after the BBC issued a landmark apology in which it acknowledged years of “unacceptable” handling of complaints about anti-Israel bias in its Arabic output, which activists say represented a “disdainful” attitude towards Jewish concerns.

In its damning verdict released today, Ofcom today it said the BBC "failed to observe its editorial guidelines on due impartiality and due accuracy" over the Chanukah bus incident.

It criticised the BBC for failing "to acknowledge promptly that there was a dispute about its interpretation of the audio, after it received evidence to support an alternative explanation that the words it had heard were in fact a Hebrew phrase, meaning 'Call someone, it’s urgent'".

They said the BBC’s failure to update the BBC News Online Article to reflect this
dispute for almost eight weeks was a "significant and concerning omission."

However Ofcom said that the BBC One London news broadcast regarding the incident did not breach the elements of its Code concerning due impartiality and due accuracy in news.

They stressed that the national broadcaster 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."

It said this was "particularly the case given that the BBC was aware that its news broadcast and online article were causing significant distress and anxiety to the victims of the attack, and to the wider Jewish community."

The watchdog said that, in its view, "if the BBC had reported on the dispute on air and amended the online article sooner than it did once new evidence emerged, this could have gone some way to help resolve the issues raised by complainants and would have enabled the focus of attention to be on the antisemitic incident itself, and not the BBC’s reporting."

Ofcom said it plans to "review how the BBC has addressed the complaints handling and transparency issues raised by this case."

Ofcom launched an investigation into the BBC in January 2022 after the corporation released a partial apology for their reporting of the Oxford Street attack.

Two months earlier, a busload of Jewish teenagers were harassed by a group of young men who spat at their bus and chanted anti-Israel slogans.

Video has emerged of a group of men spitting at a bus full of Jewish teenagers in Oxford Street where the group were celebrating the first night of Chanukah. pic.twitter.com/orOrA9kJEu

— The Jewish Chronicle (@JewishChron) December 1, 2021

Footage of the incident showed the men hitting the bus and spitting at it while passengers frantically called for the driver to leave. 

“Go, go,” one passenger shouted, while another called out: “Drive, drive.”

The BBC’s report on the November 29th attack claimed that one of the Jewish passengers said “dirty Muslims”.

This claim was denied vociferously by those who had been on board and sparked protests from a range of Jewish groups.

Forensic experts hired by the Board of Deputies concluded that rather than an English racial slur, one teenager can be heard calling for help in Hebrew.

In February the BBC issued a correction after it implied that the Community Security Trust had verified the controversial Muslim slur claim in its controversial report about the Oxford Street bus attack. 

The BBC admitted that not only was the corporation itself responsible for any verification of the claim, it “may well have arrived at a decision to include the claim irrespective of … engagement with the CST.”

This correction came just days after the national broadcaster partially upheld a complaint about its reporting on the attack on Jewish teenagers last November but it stood by its central claim that one of the youngsters had uttered an anti-Muslim slur as thugs spat at the bus and made Nazi salutes. 

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “Almost a year after the BBC’s abominable coverage of an antisemitic incident on Oxford Street, Ofcom has seen what every viewer and reader of the BBC’s coverage could but which the BBC itself refused to accept: its reportage added insult to the injury already inflicted on the victims and the Jewish community and abysmally failed to meet the most basic editorial standards. Ofcom’s decision today begins to undo that insult.

“Sadly, the BBC’s stonewalling is exactly what British Jews have come to expect from our public broadcaster. Now that Ofcom has warned the BBC after the BBC disgracefully failed to uphold our complaints against it, it has become clear as day that a Parliamentary inquiry into the BBC focusing on its coverage of issues relating to Jews is warranted, and we have joined the Jewish Chronicle and others calling for one.”

Lord Monroe Palmer, President of the Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel, said: "A modest but welcome ruling, but the incident was an example of prejudice at the BBC. The question is whether lessons have been learnt."

Gary Mond of the National Jewish Assembly said: "While the National Jewish Assembly is delighted with the ruling and the clearing of the disgraceful allegations against the children on the bus, we are very disappointed with the BBC that it failed to report the story accurately in the first place. Further, while mistakes happen, it is appalling that they did not review and correct their mistake. The BBC, as the leading media organisation in the UK, has a responsibility to report accurately and its failure here is very disappointing."

The Board of Deputies of British Jews, the largest Jewish communal organisation in the UK said in a statement that the ruling, "has made it clear that 'the BBC failed to observe its Editorial Guidelines on due impartiality and due accuracy' and has described the corporation's 'serious editorial misjudgment' in this matter.

"This ruling, in response to the Board's written complaint, validates our significant concern over the BBC's actions on this issue. We will now consider whether to take this issue to a judicial review," they continued.

A BBC spokesperson said: “While Ofcom has found that our reporting was not in breach of the Broadcasting Code, the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit ruled in January this year that more could have been done sooner to acknowledge the differing views about what could be heard on the recording of the attack. The BBC apologised at the time for not acting sooner to highlight that the content of the recording was contested.” 

CST Chief Executive Mark Gardner said: “This Ofcom ruling confirms and vindicates our concerns regarding the BBC’s flawed reporting of what was a particularly upsetting antisemitic attack in the heart of London. We hope the BBC will take this criticism seriously and learn the lessons from this sorry episode to ensure it never happens again.”

Conservative MP Stephen Crabb, who serves as the Parliamentary Chairman of Conservative Friends of Israel, said in light of the Ofcom update: "The BBC has long faced criticism over its coverage of issues relating to Israel and the Jewish community. Ofcom’s finding that the BBC failed to uphold its editorial guidelines in its coverage of the appalling antisemitic attack on Oxford Street must act as a catalyst for change.

"We rightly demand and expect more from our national broadcaster. It is not difficult to see why there has been such a groundswell of support for the Jewish Chronicle’s campaign for a parliamentary inquiry.