Two weeks after the horrific events of October 7th 2023, the BBC was in damage control mode due to extensive public criticism of its coverage of Hamas’ invasion of Israel, massacres, hostage taking and the subsequent war caused by those unprecedented attacks.
On October 20th 2023 the Board of Deputies of British Jews met with the BBC Director General Tim Davie and others. As was reported by the Telegraph at the time:
“The BBC will no longer describe Hamas as “militants” by default after complaints by Jewish leaders about the broadcaster’s coverage. […]
The broadcaster revealed on Friday that BBC journalists would no longer use militants as the “default” term for Hamas, and will describe them as a group “proscribed as a terror organisation by the UK Government and others”.”
On October 25th 2023, the BBC’s Media Centre published a statement from the corporation’s CEO of News and Current Affairs, Deborah Turness, which includes the following: [emphasis added]
“Our use of language is also a hotly-debated topic, and one which is of great importance to our audiences. The BBC uses the word ‘terrorist’ with attribution. When we mention Hamas, we make it clear, where possible, that they are a proscribed terrorist organisation by the UK government and others. We are also using the phrases ‘terror attack’ and ‘act of terror’ with attribution.
As has been reported, we have moved away from using the word ‘militant’ as a default description of Hamas or Hezbollah fighters. But we don’t ban words, and there may be times now or in the future when it’s appropriate to use the term.”
Notably, Ms Turness did not explain her use of the phrase “where possible” or specify under what circumstances the BBC would not find it possible to clarify that Hamas is defined as a proscribed terrorist organisation by the UK government.
As reported by the Telegraph, over eighteen months after those commitments were made by senior BBC executives, CAMERA UK can reveal that the corporation has not stood by them.
Between January 1st and April 30th 2025, the BBC News website published one hundred and forty-five articles referencing Hamas. Analysis of those 145 reports shows that they can be divided into four distinct categories based on how they describe that terrorist organisation:
Category 1: articles that explicitly state Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK.
Category 2: articles that mention that Hamas is proscribed in other countries but omit the UK’s designation.
Category 3: articles that refer to Hamas as an “armed group” or “militant group.”
Category 4: articles that do not mention Hamas’s proscribed status.
Of the 145 reports analysed:
– Only twelve articles (8.2%) fall into category 1 by explicitly stating that Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK.
– Ten articles (6.8%) mention that Hamas is proscribed by other countries but fail to acknowledge the UK’s designation.
– Thirty articles (20.6%) fall into category 3 by referring to Hamas as either an “armed group” or “militant group”.
– Ninety-three articles (64.1%) fail to make any reference whatsoever to Hamas’ proscribed status.
The full list of the 145 reports reviewed can be found here.
As we see, the BBC has not abided by the commitments made by its director general and CEO of news and current affairs in October 2023. The overwhelming majority of “permanent public record” BBC News website reports published in the study period make no reference whatsoever to the fact that Hamas is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the UK and the corporation has not in fact stopped using the default term ‘militant’, as was claimed by Davie at the time.
While this study relates only to English language reports published on the BBC News website, the description of Hamas as an ‘armed group’ and the failure to note that it is proscribed by the UK is also frequently seen in BBC Arabic reports.
The supposed changes of policy publicised by Davie and Turness therefore appear to have been little more than attempts to damp down the considerable criticism at the time rather than a real effort to address the serious issues arising in BBC coverage, many of which are directly linked to the corporation’s inconsistently applied approach to the use of language when reporting terrorism.
Related Articles:
BBC NEWS CONTINUES TO FAIL ON USE OF LANGUAGE
DOES THE BBC REALLY WANT TO BE KNOWN AS ‘OBJECTIVE’ ABOUT THE MASS SLAUGHTER OF ISRAELIS?
Davie and Turness should be kicked out by UK Government – they lied.
However, this is the way the leftist anti Semites have usually reacted!