Back in April we documented a BBC News website report about the release of a convicted terrorist who was presented as a “teen attacker”.
BBC’S KNELL BASES ONE-SIDED REPORT ON NGO PRESS RELEASES
CAMERA UK submitted a complaint concerning that report to the BBC in which we pointed out that Ahmed Manasra was originally sentenced to twelve years in prison for attempted murder – rather than nine-and-a-half years as claimed by Yolande Knell – but in 2017 Israel’s Supreme Court reduced his sentence by two and a half years.
We also pointed out that despite the fact that the report is to a large extent based on claims appearing in press releases put out by two NGOs – Amnesty International and Adalah – no attempt was made to follow the BBC’s editorial guidelines concerning ‘Contributors’ Affiliations’, with readers told nothing about the relevant issue of the anti-Israel records of both those political NGOs, let alone their “affiliations, funding and particular viewpoints”.
In addition we noted that Yolande Knell’s report has nothing to tell readers about the unnamed victims of the attack by Manasra and his cousin.
On April 28th 2025, we were informed that it would take more time to address our complaint. On May 19th we were told that the time-frame for doing so had expired.
On July 24th we received a response from the BBC News website which includes the following: [emphasis in bold added, italics in the original]
“I have looked carefully at your message and the report to which it refers. I understand that you are complaining about this sentence: Later, Manasra was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to nine-and-a-half years in jail.
You point out that Ahmed Manasra was originally sentenced to twelve years in prison but had his sentence reduced by two-and-a-half years by the Supreme Court.
What this means is that the original sentence of 12 years was replaced with a new sentence of nine-and-a-half years.
Yolande did not go into the details around Manasra’s sentencing because it was beyond the scope of this report, but we believe the information she provided readers was duly accurate and so no correction is needed.”
On the topic of Knell’s failure to identify and provide any information about the victims of the terror attack for which Manasra was imprisoned, the BBC’s response states:
“You also complain that the report told readers nothing about the victims of the attack by Manasra and his cousin.
The report says: Surveillance footage showed him and his 15-year-old cousin, Hassan, brandishing large kitchen knives in a Jewish settlement in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem. Hassan wounded a 13-year-old Israeli boy and an Israeli man before he was shot dead by police.
It also links readers to a story from 2015 – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34503231 – which reports on this and other knife attacks carried out by Palestinians on Israelis in the Jerusalem area.
However, we chose to focus mostly on Manasra in the most recent report because his release from prison was the peg for it. We considered his release important because the row between Israel’s government and the Palestinian Authority over Manasra’s treatment following his arrest attracted international attention.
In this article from October 2015 – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34544702 – we reported: Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday accused Israel of using excessive force against Palestinians.
He said Israel was carrying out “executions of our children in cold blood”, highlighting the case of a 13-year-old Palestinian boy, Ahmed Manasra, who was hit by a car after he and a 15-year-old stabbed two Israelis, one of them a 13-year-old boy, on Monday.
Mr Netanyahu rejected this as a “new big lie” in his news conference on Thursday, hours after his government released video and photos showing the boy alive in an Israeli hospital.
His treatment while in prison was also focused on by international human rights groups.
Therefore, we do not believe this report was biased against Israel and we believe it was written according to sound editorial judgements. We do not believe any of the complaints you make in this message raise concerns about a breach of our Editorial Guidelines.”
As readers may perhaps recall, in October 2015 the BBC did indeed choose to amplify the PA president’s inflammatory and inaccurate claims, which still remain available online without any clarification in the BBC’s own words.
BBC NEWS AMPLIFICATION FOR ABBAS’ LIES AND INCITEMENT ABOUT ‘DEAD’ TERRORIST
The most remarkable part of the BBC’s response relates to the issue of the report’s failure to clarify ‘contributors’ affiliations’:
“You also say that we should have declared in our reports that Amnesty International and Adalah are “anti-Israel”. The founding purpose of these two organisations is to defend people’s human rights rather than to undermine the state of Israel. Therefore, we do not believe we are breaching our Editorial Guidelines by not stating that they are “anti-Israel”.”
In other words, if an NGO describes itself as ‘defending human rights’, that – at least according to the writer of this response, Jeremy Howell – can be taken at face value and is enough to absolve the BBC from providing audiences with any information about its actual record, despite the existence of editorial guidelines stating:
“It should not be assumed that contributors to BBC output are unbiased or impartial. For those from organisations such as charities, think-tanks or universities, it may be necessary, when relevant, to give appropriate information about affiliations, funding or particular viewpoints. The same applies to individual researchers, journalists, scientists or other experts and, on occasion, to contributors who may be relating their own experiences. The key test is to consider whether the audience would be misled if such information was not made available.”
As was long since observed by NGO Monitor in relation to the ‘halo effect’:
“The “halo effect” is a term used in psychology, describing the tendency to favorably judge people, companies, groups, products, etc. based on the image of morality or some other positive factor. In the context of NGOs, groups that claim to promote values that are seen as universally good – peace, human rights, justice, coexistence – are automatically perceived as credible and constructive forces, immune from investigation and criticism.
This bias is manifest in the way in which factual and legal statements by politicized NGOs that claim to represent human rights are routinely accepted at face value and without question by journalists, diplomats, academics, and other opinion makers.
This “halo” shields NGOs from independent analysis and scrutiny that is directed toward other political actors. Even though factual and legal claims of NGOs have been shown to be based on faulty (or non-existent) methodology and rooted in highly biased, immoral agendas, the media routinely promulgate their statements without subjecting them to critical analysis.”
One must of course ask what exactly is the point of the ‘Contributors’ Affiliations’ section of the BBC’s editorial guidelines if the corporation’s journalists choose to apply it in a selective manner.
This response from the BBC does however shed some light on the many years of BBC failure to comply with that part of its own editorial guidelines, particularly in relation to political NGOs.
Related Articles:
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