Readers may be familiar with the recent story about a Gaza Strip based journalist who allegedly agreed to stage crisis footage in exchange for payment.
Since May 2012 the journalist concerned – Motasem Dalloul – has worked for the reportedly Qatar funded, London based outlet ‘Middle East Monitor’ (MEMO). He has also written for ‘Middle East Eye’ and is involved in additional media projects including ‘Days of Palestine’, which he claims to have founded and which describes itself as “concerned with international media” and “dedicated to amplifying the Palestinian narrative globally”.
The BBC has in the past found fit to include contributions from Dalloul in its reporting, for example in January 2011, June 2012 and November 2012.
Interestingly, the BBC’s solicitation of contributions from Dalloul appears not to have ended in 2012.
In a social media post he wrote on May 16th in response to the above story, Dalloul claims that “The BBC and others insisted to pay money for me”.
As we know, the BBC refuses to identify the “trusted local journalists” with whom it has worked in the Gaza Strip for the past nineteen months. However, in light of Motasem Ahmed Dalloul’s social media post, perhaps in this case the corporation would care to inform its funding public exactly which items of “trusted news” were based on “materials” it sourced from that Hamas supporter and what work he has done at the request of “news editors”.
Time for Deborah Turness – head of BBC News to answer and stop hiding behind the skirts of Tim Davie and Samir Shah
The BBC’s hierachy is, pure and simple, the Muslim mouthpiece for Hamas. There is no record of its ever reporting praise, sympathy, understanding nor approval of Britain’s ally, Israel, and its fight to keep its legal borders intact.
The fact that its audience is forced to pay £14.80/month to read its lies, omissions and garbage is nothing short of a national disgrace.