Why allegations of BBC bias on Israel are becoming hard to reconcile
He did not pause to take his overcoat off before launching into a diatribe: 'I've always said opinions are like arseholes, everyone's got one,' he pronounced, before adding: 'I am in favour of free speech but there is a line which can't be crossed and, as far as I am concerned, you've crossed it, and you must stop this!'
Ronson was not protesting about our analysis of his chequered business career, but about our coverage of Israel. With him was the then-president of the Board of Deputies, which is sometimes presented as representing the view of British Jews. It is not clear why anyone thought that Ronson would be a persuasive advocate.
Over time attempts to influence British media became more sophisticated. A number of 'media monitoring groups' with bland-sounding names were established with the explicit purpose of microscopically examining every word, every picture, every inch of footage – and duly pronouncing much coverage to be biased against Israel.
In parallel, selected journalists would be invited on all-expenses-paid trips to Israel to be 'briefed.' Not so long ago I myself was asked by a popular columnist if I'd like to go on such a trip – and gradually became aware that a number of distinguished journalists appeared to have seized a similar opportunity without declaring the source of funding or acknowledging the arrangements behind the briefings.
The BBC has been a particular target. It is close to an article of faith for some – maybe even many – that the BBC is biased. Biased against the right, biased against Brexit, biased against ordinary working people. And biased against Israel.
But not only the BBC. Sky TV is, according to one David Collier, 'a pro-terrorist propaganda channel.' But then Mr Collier has a dystopian view of the future of British Jews, tweeting recently: 'Relax. We will all be gone soon. British Jews, Israeli business. chased out by an increasingly hostile UK. And when you all sit here in a 3rd world country with an Islamic flag over Downing St. you can let us know whether it was a good idea or not.'
Now Mr Collier is a dogged researcher, recently shedding light on serious flaws in a BBC documentary on Gaza. For many years he worked in hospitality and tourism, but is now an investigative journalist. He told the Times of Israel recently: 'What [The BBC] have is an engine room full of activist journalists all desperately falling over each other trying to outdo each other in finding new ways to demonise Israel.'
Another prominent critic of the BBC is an English / Israeli lawyer called Trevor Asserson, who recently garnered headlines in the UK press after commissioning a report, compiled by Israeli lawyers which claimed to identify a total of 1,553 breaches of the BBC's editorial guidelines in its coverage of Israel. The report was seized on by former BBC executive Danny Cohen, as demonstrating an 'institutional crisis' at the corporation.
Cohen himself has founded, and chairs, the blandly-titled UK Media Research Counc il [UKMRC}, which employs a number of former Mail on Sunday and Telegraph journalists. According to Private Eye, which has been unable to establish who funds the body, it admits to 'focusing particularly on antisemitism and what they consider to be an anti-Israel narrative in the media.' Cohen himself collaborated with yet another blandly-named media monitoring outfit, Camera UK, to produce yet one more report highlighting alleged BBC bias against Israel.
All this stuff is lapped up by those news organisations which instinctively rally to the Israeli cause or (an overlapping group) despise the BBC. So it was a little uncomfortable for some journalists this week when a 188-page report was published claiming to show that, far from being biased against Israel, the BBC was, in fact, biased towards Israel.
The report, published on Monday, was endorsed by a number of prominent figures, including the admirable Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, former chair of the Conservative Party and the first Muslim woman to serve in a British Cabinet. She wrote: 'This is no cherry-picked critique. It is a comprehensive, evidence-based indictment that cannot be ignored.'
But, of course, it was ignored.
The findings included claims that the BBC humanises Israeli casualties and dehumanises Palestinian ones; that Palestinian deaths make fewer headlines; that there is an extreme imbalance in reporting fatalities; that the BBC doesn't treat Palestinian sympathisers fairly; and that the context and history of the conflict is underplayed. It argues that the BBC suppresses or minimises allegations of genocide and underreports attacks on press freedom. And so on.
You may agree, or disagree, with any of the above. But it's unlikely you will be aware of it. As far as I can tell no mainstream news organisation thought it was worth so much as an inch of coverage. It sank without trace.
The report was praised by the former Mail and Telegraph political columnist and now award-winning blogger, Peter Oborne, as 'an outstanding and thorough examination off BBC coverage.' This cut no ice with David Collier, who tweeted: 'It is, at best, a piece of risible, inaccurate junk.' In another post, he noted that the bland-sounding organisation which had published it , The Centre for Media Monitoring, was funded by the Muslim Council for Britain (MCB). 'What a pile of absolute garbage,' he scoffed.
Some critiqued that the authors had used large language models [LLMs] to help their research. They were less bothered by Trevor Asserson's use of ChatGPT to help produce his own report.
Now, it would be surprising if the MCB were to sponsor a report showing the BBC was anti-Israel. Equally, hell might have to freeze over before Messrs Collier, Asserson or Cohen would come to the conclusion that the BBC was institutionally biased towards Israel.
But there is some worrying asymmetry involved here. The bland-sounding pro-Israel groups are simply more numerous and better-resourced than any bland-sounding pro-Palestinian group. They have more willing amplifiers in the mainstream media.
Over the years narratives are constructed and take root. And when someone comes along with a counter-narrative they are ignored. It would be unkind to call it GroupThink but there is, at the very least, a lack of balance. Which, of course, is the accusation thrown at the BBC.
It all makes one rather nostalgic for Gerald Ronson and his homilies about arseholes. You knew where you were.
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