{"id":301248,"date":"2025-01-01T08:21:58","date_gmt":"2025-01-01T08:21:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=301248"},"modified":"2025-01-03T08:06:52","modified_gmt":"2025-01-03T08:06:52","slug":"bbc-staffers-reveal-editors-role-in-whitewashing-israeli-war-crimes-in-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=301248","title":{"rendered":"BBC staffers reveal editor\u2019s role in whitewashing Israeli war crimes in Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"

Press TV \u2013 Dec 29, 2024<\/strong><\/h1>\n

BBC staffers have revealed that editor Raffi Berg exercises full control over the outlet\u2019s online reporting on Israel\u2019s genocidal war in Gaza, ensuring all coverage favors Israel, according to a new report.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Drop Site News<\/em>, in a report\u00a0published on December 28, said it spoke to 13 current and former staffers who said that the BBC\u2019s coverage consistently dehumanizes Palestinians and ignores Israeli crimes in Gaza where close to 45,500 Palestinians have been killed.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Berg\u2019s] entire job is to water down everything that\u2019s too critical of Israel,\u201d one former BBC journalist said.<\/p>\n

Another BBC journalist said Berg plays a key role in a broader BBC culture of \u201csystematic Israeli propaganda.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow much power he has is wild,\u201d said another journalist.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was an extreme fear at the BBC, that if you ever wanted to do anything about Israel or Palestine, editors would say: \u2018If you want to pitch something, you have to go through Raffi and get his signoff,\u201d another journalist explained.<\/p>\n

In one instance, Berg downplayed Amnesty International\u2019s report on Israeli genocide in Gaza.<\/p>\n

He chose a headline emphasizing Israel\u2019s denial\u2014\u201cIsrael rejects \u2018fabricated\u2019 claims of genocide\u201d\u2014and delayed publishing the story for 12 hours, limiting its online reach.<\/p>\n

The interviewed journalists noted that the Amnesty report wasn\u2019t covered on BBC\u2019s flagship programs: BBC One\u2019s News At One, News At Six, News At Ten, or BBC Two\u2019s Newsnight.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone who writes on Gaza or Israel is asked: \u2018Has it gone to edpol [editorial policy], lawyers, and has it gone to Raffi?\u2019\u201c another journalist said.<\/p>\n

Berg, author of a book praising Mossad\u2019s clandestine operations, exerts significant influence over global perceptions of Israel\u2019s Gaza war because, with 1.1 billion visits in May, the BBC\u2019s pro-Israel bias can\u00a0significantly shape\u00a0the narrative.<\/p>\n

Berg\u2019s bias is also evident in language choices for coverage.<\/p>\n

Terms like \u201cmassacre,\u201d \u201cslaughter,\u201d and \u201catrocities\u201d are prominently used for Hamas but seldom for Israel\u2019s actions, as noted by BBC Arabic correspondent Rami Ruhayem.<\/p>\n

The BBC often obscures Israeli responsibility in headlines and uses terms favored by the Israeli military to downplay war crimes, such as describing forcible transfers or ethnic cleansing of Palestinian civilians\u00a0 as \u201cevacuations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report also notes that when the BBC does mention Israel as the perpetrator, it uses the caveat \u201creportedly.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the then-Israeli war minister Yoav Gallant publicly vowed to impose a \u201cfull siege\u201d on Gaza while calling Palestinians \u201chuman animals\u201d the story received just one mention in any BBC online content.<\/p>\n

BBC journalists have urged management to address the bias and balance coverage, but their concerns have been ignored.<\/p>\n

Many correspondents have raised issues about Berg\u2019s power to reframe stories without success.<\/p>\n

Requests for emphasizing Israel\u2019s restriction of BBC access to Gaza, providing context about the occupation, and clarifying the displacement of Palestinian refugees beginning in 1948 have gone unheeded, according to the report.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To add insult to injury, viewers are required to pay a mandatory \u2018license fee\u2019for what is essentially pro-Israeli propaganda <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":276617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[118,42,37,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-301248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-7-10-gaza-war","category-controlling-the-news-andor-the-free-exchange-of-ideas-and-information","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies","category-The_Media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=301248"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":301249,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301248\/revisions\/301249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/276617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=301248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=301248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=301248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}