Gaza demonstrations, mainly lacking any physical target to protest at, have been taking demonstrations to BBC offices across the country. Claiming BBC bias over coverage of the conflict in Gaza, chants have included 'Shame on you BBC!'.
Is the BBC a biased news institution? Certainly! A brief look at any item of industrial news will tell you immediately on which side of the barricades the BBC sits. Is this a surprise? Not at all! Throughout the BBC's history it has played a decisive and divisive role in events. During the Miners strike, the Hillsborough disaster, the Iraq War, the BBC told a certain story. Is it then a 'shame' on the BBC to be carrying biased reporting on the Gaza war now? In a way yes, on the level of purely humanitarian feeling. However, it is not a 'shame' against their tradition, history or mission. Despite being an obligatory licence fee funded broadcaster, the BBC is by no means controlled by us or an organ of our movements.
In some ways I sympathise with the impulse to target protest at the BBC coverage of the conflict in Gaza. Outside of London where you have no Israeli embassy to target, the question is where to focus solidarity protests. However, in Sheffield, Newcastle, Bristol and other places this quite often resulted in pickets of, or protests outside of local BBC radio or news offices. Rather more symbolic than effective. Is the hope of these actions to actually change BBC reporting or build a consensus whereby there is a single, uncomplicated 'enemy' comprised of the BBC, Israel and the British state?
BIAS?
Is the BBC being more biased than other news institutions? This depends on what sort of bias and what situation. The media is not going to report in our interests, it never has done. The question then is, is it unbalanced in the role it does play? The BBC in particular holds up the idea of balance. This balance boils down to giving equal air time to different sides. In an unbalanced, historical conflict such as that in Israel-palestine we know that simply giving equal air time does not equal balance.
The current UK comparison is that of the BBC and Channel 4 News. Comparisons are hard to make, and somewhat unproductive. One infographic claims that in the same evening on Wednesday 30th July the BBC spent 24% of its bulletin covering Gaza whilst C4 News spent 38%. It further goes on to claim that C4 News explicitly blamed Israel for an attack on a U.N school and raised the possibility of this as a war crime, whilst the BBC did not. This infographic was made by a journalist at Saudi pan-Arab news station Al-Arabiya, not exactly a bastion of truthful reporting. Watching both BBC and C4 News coverage personally, all I can see is a greater willingness to show pictures of dead or injured children and use more emotive language on C4 News. Pictures of dead children does not necessarily mean that C4 News is reliably reporting the historical depth of this complex conflict.
Many will point you to Russia Today (RT) or Al Jazeera in your quest to find unbiased news coverage. RT, as an example, portrayed last summer's deadly chemical weapons attack by the Syrian regime on its own people as “staged”. Al Jazeera is funded by the ruling family of Qatar. Whilst none of this, like with the BBC, means that these news stations will never report the truth, it certainly means that as a socialist they should not be your sole, unquestioning, source of information.
SOLIDARITY
Lacking an Israeli embassy, how then to target understandable anger into productive action on Gaza demonstrations. By keeping in touch with left wing and workers organisations in Israel and in Palestine, we do have news to publicise. Workers' Liberty writes about this in our paper and on our website. We have also in the past organised speaker tours with young people from Israel who are refusing to serve in compulsory military service. 50 more military refusers have come to light recently, demonstrations could collect messages of solidarity, send video messages or collect petitions for their release. Direct solidarity with organisations such as Gush Shalom (an Israeli peace movement) or Wac-Maan, a workers advice centre who seeks to organise Palestinian and Israeli workers, is a much more productive form of solidarity than trying to “shame” the BBC.
Gush Shalom - http://zope.gush-shalom.org/index_en.html
WAC - MAAN - http://www.wac-maan.org.il/en/about
