Since it was established early last week that the US and Israel were operating jointly on strikes in Iran, the BBC has been reporting extremely carefully on the situation on the ground. While it is undoubtedly wonderful to see such good examples of BBC journalism at work, it begs the question, why are these high standards not applied in Gaza, and why was there a seeming shift in tone after US involvement became clear?
For example, as the news broke on February 28th on BBC World Service Radio guest Foad Izadi made allegations about the death toll at a school in Minab, which presenter Paul Henley accepted without contest:
Izadi: Yesterday, we lost over 140 little school girls because of an American Israeli attack on a school.”
Henley: “You’re saying 140 original reports were 40”
Izadi: “So you know this this was a big school and they are still digging bodies that we expect, even it could be more than 140. We are dealing with the Epstein class. They rape American girls and they bomb Iranian girls. The country is going through very difficult times.”
Henley: “Can you tell us what you witnessed, what you’ve seen in the streets. What is actually happening?
However, two days later on March 2nd on the Global News Podcast Anna Foster did not give Professor Izadi the same easy ride:
Izadi: “The new leader will make sure that there is enough cost to the Epstein class the people who like to rape little American girls and like to kill little Iranian girls this last 160 school children on the first day of attacks..
Foster: “I don’t quite understand, you’re saying the new leader will make sure that the country is not attacked and you’re talking about the Epstein class there, but how will the new leader do that will there be better dialogue with other countries around the world, will there be less of the regime killing its own people who show dissent against it for example how will the new leader change things”
Izadi: “this is BBC propaganda points, we had a revolution attempt in January the BBC portrayed that as a popular uprising that is false we had Mossad agents operating in Tehran streets”
Foster: “It’s not false to say that thousands of Iranians were killed”
Izadi: “By Mossad agents, by Mossad agents”
Foster: “No by the regime when they took to the streets”
Izadi: “No, no that’s false that’s BBC propaganda”
On March 3rd on Radio 4’s Today programme, Correspondent Joe Inwood went so far as to name Islamic Regime propaganda outright:
Inwood: “In Tehran, people run towards what remains of a building. A woman walks in the other direction looking dazed. Videos like this shared on social media are often the best way to get a picture from the ground. There are news agencies, here, taken on an official government tour of a site they want the world to see. Construction workers are already here, cutting through the twisted remains of a building. Standing near the rubble is a middle-aged woman. She has a colourful scarf wrapped around her neck; her hair is uncovered. She does not look like a supporter of the Islamic Republic, but her message is one they would approve of.”
Woman: “Why are they doing this? Why are they destroying our nation like this? How can these lives possibly be rebuilt? I swear we struggled for forty-seven years to build our lives,”
Inwood: “But it’s not all government propaganda. The blown-out windows of this apartment block are very real.”
Earlier in the same programme, Merlyn Thomas of BBC Verify explained the limits on reporting in Iran to Nick Robinson:
Thomas: “it’s still a very incomplete picture because there’s a near total internet black out there the normal kind of footage and videos we’d analyze and have plenty of. We just don’t have that at the moment.”
Robinson: “So you can be clear that there’s been destruction, there’s been death. You can be clear about the location itself. As for the number of dead which the Iranians put at at least 153, presumably it’s impossible to actually measure the number from where we are without sources on the ground”
Thomas: “Exactly, it’s really difficult to independently verify the death toll because, as you say, international news organisations are often refused visas which really limits our ability to gather information there. But what we can do is count the dead bodies one by one in footage, and that gives us a partial picture”
On BBC World Service Newshour Leila Nathoo continued studiously upholding BBC standards in her interview with Iranian professor Hassan Ahmadian:
Ahmadian: To your first point, I think where what the Secretary of State in the United States is saying is utterly untrue, because in Minab it’s very much documented by Al Jazeera and you know international and internal news agencies that 100, roughly 170 school kids were killed in the first hour of the attack, and then a gym also was hit in the first hour of the attack. So to say that all of this is not intentional, I would I, I, I would be very much shocked to see how they can hit these civilian infrastructure in the first hour and suggest others to believe that it was unintentional.”
Nathoo: “The BBC, as I said, has not been able to report on the ground from Iran, and so we haven’t been able to independently verify the situation and what happened in Minab”
Where was this clarity in the wake of the Al Ahli Hospital incident? Where was the pushback against Tom Fletcher and his egregious 14,000 babies will die claim? When the BBC reports the number of people killed in Gaza how often do they add the caveat “cannot be independently verified”, as opposed to the euphemistic mantra of “Hamas controlled health ministry”?
Much has been written both by us at Camera and in the wider media about the BBC’s willingness to quote reports from Gaza on casualties and incidents as fact, whether those reports come from Hamas, NGO’s or journalists on the ground heavily compromised by their proximity to Hamas and their known coercion of the press. The BBC has shown in recent days that it is absolutely capable of drawing those lines, labelling potential propaganda, and clearly pushing back on guests making unverified claims when it comes to the Islamic Regime in Iran. Why then, is it seemingly unable to do so with regard to their proxy army in Gaza, Hamas, and will we see in the coming days, a commitment to such reporting in Lebanon?
It would seem that when the conflict involves Israel alone, as opposed to Israel and the US, the rules are applied somewhat differently.
