A June 10 report at ITV News by James Mates about an Israeli attack on sites in Tyre, in southern Lebanon, abandoned even the pretense of impartial journalism by promoting the charge, without evidence, that forces intentionally bombed a hospital in the city, while failing to include the IDF denial released a week prior to the segment.
During the four minute report, Mates only interviewed Lebanese residents of the Hezbollah stronghold, accepting their denials at face value that the terror group maintained a military presence near the hospital and throughout the city.
Shamefully, the ITV reporter failed to even briefly provide Israel’s response, or solicit the views of Lebanese citizens critical of the terrorist group whose armed presence in the the country is a violation of international law. (Roughly 80 percent of Lebanese believe Hezbollah should be disarmed.)
At one point during the programme, Mates dismisses past Israeli claims that Hezbollah places military targets in or around hospitals. Yet, the Alma Research and Education Center has documented previous instances of the terror group placing military infrastructure right next to another hospital in Tyre.
In fact, Alma’s database – based on open-source information – shows dozens of other incidents of of Hezbollah’s use of human shields in Lebanon since 2023, including the firing of rockets from schools and other civilian structures.
More importantly, Mates not only failed to reach out to the IDF or Israeli officials for comment, but ignored the following military statement – which, as we noted, was released a week before the ITV report:
“An initial examination indicates that as a result of the strike [on Hezbollah infrastructure in Tyre], damage was caused to a hospital in the area. It should be emphasized that the hospital was not targeted and was apparently affected incidentally as a result of the strikes,” the military says.
The IDF accuses Hezbollah of “systematically positioning itself among civilian infrastructure and population centers, and placing its infrastructure near medical institutions, thereby endangering the lives of patients, medical staff, and civilians in the area, in violation of international law.”
“The IDF emphasizes that it operates only against the Hezbollah terror organization and acts as much as possible to minimize harm to civilian infrastructure, medical institutions, and medical personnel,” the military adds.
As Mates and his colleagues at ITV News surely know, Ofcom – which regulates broadcast media in the UK – requires news “in whatever form” to be “reported with due accuracy and presented with due impartiality”. Impartiality, Ofcom clarifies, means ensuring “that the views expressed in a news item are challenged critically by presenters and reporters within the programmes”.
By ignoring Hezbollah’s likely role in the incident they reported, while failing to provide viewers with the Israel’s response to the incendiary accusation that that the army intentionally struck a hospital, ITV News not only ran afoul of Ofcom’s requirements, but violated the basic tenants of professional journalism, to pursue the truth without fear or favour.
