BBC Monitoring is the partially licence fee funded department that translates open source traditional and new media from around the world and describes its mission as being “to provide news, information and insight to BBC journalists, UK government customers and commercial subscribers, allowing users to make well-informed decisions”.
Earlier this year BBC Monitoring advertised some vacancies in its Jerusalem office, including a position titled Digital Journalist that was described as follows:
“On a day-to-day basis, you will contribute to the BBC’s coverage of the Middle East by monitoring local media for key developments, coming up with new angles, ensuring accuracy and adding context as well as integrating video, images and data into BBCM’s output.” [emphasis added]
The successful applicant for that position is apparently called Vera Sajrawi.
A native of Nazareth, Sajrawi has in the past worked for BBC Arabic, Reuters and Al Jazeera among others.
Sajrawi has claimed that “AIPAC is the American group lobbying for more weapons for Israel to kill Palestinians” and is apparently at ease with the notion that ‘the occupation’ commenced in 1948.
That obviously does not bode well for BBC Monitoring’s commitment to “ensuring accuracy”, for consumers of supposedly impartial BBC Middle East related content or for clients (including the UK government) relying on the information it provides to help them make “well-informed decisions”.