Asserson report is devastating critique of BBC bias

I felt strongly then – and still do now – that an independent broadcaster is crucial to holding the government to account in an open, pluralistic democracy such as ours.

Its role is to provide the most accurate, independent and unbiased coverage. That is the basis on which our trust in the organisation depends, and why it receives £4 billion in public funds from licence-fee payers.

Some on the right campaign against the BBC because they are ideologically opposed to spending public money on a state broadcaster. Some competitors want to undermine such a dominant force on the media landscape. Given my track record of defending the BBC and my belief in public-service broadcasting, I can’t be accused of being in either camp.

The BBC receives the licence fee to employ professional and highly trained journalists, operating to the best standards with output that is the most accurate, fair and unbiased journalism in the world.

I first raised questions after the appalling coverage of the attack on a group of Jewish youngsters celebrating Chanukah on Oxford Street in 2021. The report – in which the BBC implied the youngsters had provoked the attack – was bad enough. The way they defended it was even worse.

The situation has deteriorated further since the Hamas atrocities of October 7 last year, which triggered the Israel-Hamas war.

The BBC tries to brush off these criticisms, but this week’s report by the respected international litigator Trevor Asserson provides devastating evidence of the BBC’s failings.

He hired a team of lawyers and data science experts to examine almost all the corporation’s news coverage during the first four months of the conflict.

They used AI to support what he says are the most “rigorous, traditional forensic standards” to examine almost nine million words on tv and radio, on podcasts and the internet, in English and Arabic.

It looks like the most detailed analysis of the BBC’s coverage to date and it reveals what he says is a “reckless disregard” for the standards the BBC has a duty to uphold.

Devastatingly, according to Asserson, the BBC is “fundamentally failing in its public obligations”.

For example, his report shows that the BBC is far more likely to lead people to believe that Hamas is a health ministry, rather than a proscribed terrorist organisation and that Israel is far more likely to be accused of war crimes, and crimes against humanity, than Hamas.

He has looked in detail at coverage on BBC Arabic, which he says is “out of control”. Effectively, he asserts that the British public is paying for the production of a British version of anti-Israel Al-Jazeera.

As usual, and despite the detail, Asserson’s report was dismissed by the BBC.

They were sent the report days before it was published and with ample time to look at and respond to the criticisms but instead of engaging with the substance, the BBC has tried to dismiss the findings with vague claims of concern about the methodology.

They have neither met nor interviewed Asserson about his methods or his findings. There has been no public debate about his report on the BBC at all.

The BBC’s board must meet to study this report and discuss its findings in detail. If they continue to refuse to take these complaints seriously, the broadcaster could end up in court facing a judicial review. In that scenario, it won’t just be the BBC’s commercial rivals who are raising question’s over the organisation’s public funding.