BBC promotes Iranian disinformation and then loses interest

On the morning of June 19^th the BBC News website opened a live page with the first entry telling audiences that:

“An Israeli military official says dozens of Iranian missiles have been launched at Israel, hitting several civilian areas, including a hit on Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, southern Israel.”

Less than two hours later and following several entries on the topic of that missile hit on Soroka hospital, the BBC began promoting Iranian regime disinformation and continued to do so throughout the day:

In the late afternoon, BBC Verify entered the picture.

Several later items quoted that one and it also appeared on a June 19^th BBC Verify live page where numerous previous entries had told readers that the Iranian claims were being investigated. Notably, BBC Verify’s claim to “be working to check this claim” did not produce any clear-cut clarification of the fact that the IRGC/Iranian regime claim was false.

On the afternoon of June 19^th the ‘Fake Reporter’ account published a thread analysing the Iranian regime’s claims and noting its use of a fabricated map.

Nearly two and a half hours later, a BBC Verify journalist posted the following on social media:

That information was not made available to BBC audiences either on the BBC Verify live pages of that day or the next nor on the BBC News website’s dedicated BBC Verify page nor on the live page which had earlier promoted the Iranian regime’s disinformation. In fact, June 20^th saw more BBC promotion of that Iranian propaganda on the same live page following another Iranian ballistic missile attack on Be’er Sheva:

A BBC News website report by Lyse Doucet and Lucy Clarke-Billings – which was published hours after the BBC Verify team already knew that the map was fake and that the Soroka hospital building had taken “a direct hit rather than the effect of an adjacent blast” – nevertheless tells BBC audiences that:

“The US joining Israeli strikes would cause “hell for the whole region”, Iran’s deputy foreign minister has told the BBC. […]

His comments came after the Soroka hospital in southern Israel was hit during an Iranian missile attack. Iranian state media reported that the strike targeted a military site next to the hospital, and not the facility itself.”

As we see, the BBC was very quick off the mark in promoting the Iranian regime’s disinformation but when its false claims and maps were debunked, the corporation suddenly lost interest, failing to provide its audiences with a prominent and transparent explanation of why those claims were false and failing to amend reports that amplified them. 

Another notable entry on the same BBC News website live page came early on the morning of June 20^th with the publication of an item written by BBC Persian reporter Parizad Nobakht, who also promoted it on social media.

Nobakht’s disingenuous promotion of “two similar tragedies” fails to inform BBC audiences that while Soroka hospital sustained a direct hit, the Farabi hospital did not. As previously noted here, it was damaged because the IRGC had place military projectile storage sites – a legitimate military target – near the hospital and launched missiles from the vicinity.

OMISSIONS IN BBC REPORT ABOUT STRIKE ON IRAN STATE TV BUILDING