BBC coverage of prisoner release in pictures

The story of the recent release of another twenty-six Palestinians convicted of murdering Israeli (and Palestinian) civilians has of course two aspects to it: the Israeli aspect and the Palestinian one.

The imbalance in the BBC’s coverage of those two aspects is apparent not only in the word count and the language used in its various reports on the subject, but also in the images selected to illustrate those articles.

In the article appearing on October 28th on the BBC News website, two images were used.

Images 1

Images 2

In the article from October 29th one photograph was used.

Images 6

In the filmed report of October 30th all the footage was of celebrations in Ramallah.

Knell filmed pris

The written article from October 30th included the video clip of the filmed report as well as two additional images.

images 3

Images 4

Also in that article, one photograph taken at the October 28th demonstration against the prisoner release held outside Ofer prison (which was not covered at all by the BBC) was featured. 

Images 5 I

Not one image of any of the twenty-five victims of the murders committed by the twenty-six prisoners was shown by the BBC and yet again the faces of family members of the victims also remain unseen.  That is not because such photographs do not exist; it is an editorial decision.

Below are just some of the other pictures taken at the same demonstration by photographers from the same agency – Getty Images – as credited on the image the BBC did choose to use. 

G I 1

G I 2

G I 3

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