Open Letter to Samir Shah: the BBC and its Jewish audience

Dear Mr Shah

Many congratulations on your appointment as the new Chairman of the BBC. It is a historic moment to see the first non-White Chairman of the BBC (though not, of course, as some have said, the first member of an ethnic minority to be appointed Chairman, since that honour belongs to your predecessor, Richard Sharp). You face many challenges and I wish you every success with changing the BBC for the better.

One issue which I hope will be in your in-tray is the loss of confidence of so many British Jews in the BBC, as a result of its biased coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas over the past weeks. Two recent polls stand out. On 8 December, The Jewish Chronicle published the results of a poll it conducted. Those surveyed were asked whether they agreed that BBC coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas was “biased” or “very biased” against Israel. 51% said it was “very biased” and 27% said that it was “biased”. According to this poll, over three quarters of British Jews view the BBC as more or less biased against Israel. More recently, a poll for the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) revealed that 86% of British Jews disagreed with the statement: “Overall, I am satisfied with the BBC’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas crisis.” Of these, 71% strongly disagreed and 15% disagreed. Only 3% agreed with the statement whilst 1% strongly agreed.

A BBC spokesperson responded to the CAA poll, “The BBC holds itself to high standards of impartial reporting and rejects the suggestion that we are biased against Israel.” They continued, “Our own audience research shows that BBC News is considered the most impartial provider for coverage of the conflict. BBC News will continue to listen carefully to all audience feedback.”

The complacency of this response is breathtaking. They offered no argument or evidence to show why the concern of so many British Jews with BBC bias is unfounded and, worse still, showed no apparent concern that the BBC seems to be letting down so many Jewish licence payers.

Just as complacent, but more disturbing because it comes from the CEO, BBC News and Current Affairs, is a response to first wave of criticisms of the BBC’s news coverage of the recent conflict between Israel and Hamas. She began, “I could not be prouder of the BBC’s journalists and our journalism. Over the past few days we have produced truly powerful coverage from inside Gaza, from Israel and from the wider region.”

This was just after many had condemned the BBC for refusing to call Hamas a terrorist organisation and the BBC’s woeful coverage on the night of the missile attack on the Al-Aqsa hospital in Gaza City when Jon Donnison, an experienced reporter, asked if Israel might be responsible for the missile attack, told BBC viewers, “It’s hard to see what else this could be, really, given the size of the explosion, other than an Israeli air strike, or several air strikes.” Christian Fraser, the presenter of The Context, should have told him that it was too early to speculate — given that Donnison had no evidence at all, and was soon proven wrong — but he didn’t. A few weeks later, Jeremy Bowen, interviewed on a BBC news programme, admitted that he incorrectly suggested the hospital “was flattened” following the blast, but said that he doesn’t regret “one thing” about his reporting.

There have been numerous other problems with the BBC’s coverage which has alienated Jewish viewers and listeners. Strident and self-righteous interviewing of Israeli spokesmen, very different in tone from interviews with Palestinian speakers or with representatives from UN and international aid organisations; the insistence that the UN and its organisations in Gaza are neutral, even authoritative, sources; the constant reliance on Palestinian Health Authority statistics, even though it was clear that this organisation is a front for Hamas, and the inability of the BBC to provide any of its own data; the related failure to offer any proper analysis of the figures supplied by Hamas or of staged footage by Hamas, including a report by Jeremy Bowen which used such footage featuring a Hamas actor who has appeared in numerous different guises during the conflict.

Few, if any, within the BBC have openly criticised the BBC’s coverage. It is worth contrasting this silence with an article by Danny Cohen, previously the Director of BBC Television, who said, “I think there’s institutional bias at play…That’s why it keeps happening. Mistakes happen once, perhaps twice, but when they keep happening you have to ask why. I think there are institutional biases.” He added: “What’s clear to me is there is an ongoing issue with anti-Israel bias that there appears to be an inability to control.” Writing in The Telegraph, Cohen called for an independent inquiry into antisemitism and anti-Israel bias at the BBC. “On a daily basis Britain’s Jews are being harmed through its unbalanced reporting of the Israel-Hamas war and the failure of its senior management to get to grips with it,” he wrote. “This means that the time has now come for a long overdue independent inquiry into the corporation’s editorial and management failures in its reporting of Israel.”

Cohen is right. It is time for an independent inquiry into the BBC’s coverage of Israel and, in particular, of the current conflict in Gaza. Almost twenty years ago the BBC commissioned the Balen Report, following persistent complaints from the public and the Israeli government of allegations of anti-Israel bias in BBC news programmes. The report by a senior BBC journalist, Malcolm Balen, has still not been published. Following the failure to publish the Balen Report and the complacent response to criticisms from the BBC’s current CEO, News and Current Affairs, it is hardly surprising that there is little confidence among Britain’s Jewish community that BBC News can be trusted to handle an inquiry into bias by its own programme-makers, including some of its most senior reporters.

There are a number of outstanding candidates to head an independent inquiry: David Elstein, previously Director of Programmes at Thames, Head of Programming at BskyB and Chief Executive of Channel 5; Roger Mosey, previously Head of BBC Television News, author of one of the best books written about BBC News (20 Things That Would Make the News Better) and currently Master of Selwyn College, Cambridge; or Mark Damazer, formerly editor of Newsnight, editor of The Nine O’Clock News, Deputy Editor of BBC News, Controller of Radio 4 and Master of St. Peter’s College, Oxford.

Such an inquiry could not be more timely. First because of the loss of confidence in BBC News coverage of Israel by the overwhelming majority of Britain’s Jewish community. Second, because BBC flagship news programmes are in crisis. Newsnight, facing significant budget cuts in the New Year, and Radio 4’s Today, losing its audience at a worrying rate, are among the chief culprits in terms of bias. Third, and most disturbing of all, for the first time in its history it is not clear what kind of future the BBC has. Its defenders, especially within the BBC, argue this is because of huge budget cuts as a result of real cuts in the licence fee. Its critics acknowledge the reality of these cuts, but claim this is a distraction from more serious problems in programming: biased news coverage (first, Brexit, now Israel); political correctness, as in recent Doctor Who series; the cancelling or disappearance of too many popular programmes, the latest being Top Gear and A Question of Sport; and the questionable appointment of too many bad presenters on once-popular BBC programmes. A robust independent inquiry into bias in its news programmes would show that the BBC, under a new chairman, was starting to get a grip on its current crisis. And it would begin the task of rebuilding confidence in the Corporation among Jewish license-payers.

David Herman.

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