Early on the morning of March 5th a report headlined “Israel-Gaza: Defaced peace mural is painted black by TfL” was published on the BBC News website’s ‘London’ page and in the updates section of its ‘Middle East’ page.
Written by “Advanced Journalism Trainee” Jacob Evans, that report opens:
“An Israel-Gaza peace mural that was defaced two weeks after its unveiling in east London has been painted over by Transport for London (TfL).
The mural appeared on a TfL-owned building on Old Street, Shoreditch in February and was created by the charity, Circle of Toys.
It featured two girls – one in a headscarf waving an Israeli flag and another waving the flag of Palestine.
TfL says it painted it black “as not to encourage any antisocial behaviour”.”
Later in his report Evans tells readers that:
“Circle of Toys was set up following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with the goal of sending toys to children caught up in the conflict.
It recently established a base in the Middle East with the aim of encouraging people to donate toys to children in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
While the graffitied mural drew attention to their cause, it also received considerable backlash.
One media outlet, Mint Press, called the display “bizarre” and labelled it a “normalisation mural”.”
The link to the Mint Press News Instagram account promoted by Evans touts a conspiracy theory:
Adam Almagore is a British citizen.
Anyone familiar with the “media outlet” Mint Press News would not be surprised in the least by its promotion of such a conspiracy theory. That financially untransparent, Assad regime supporting, outfit was described by researchers at the Rutgers University Network Contagion Research Institute as a disinformation site which “promotes anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and which also posts copy from Russia Today and Sputnik, the Russian state-owned news agency”.
In 2022 Mint Press News produced a ‘documentary’ “featuring rare interviews with the Palestinian armed resistance and innocent victims of Israeli aggression”. It has been blocked by PayPal and GoFundMe as well as TikTok.
In recent months that largely one-woman show (which uses contributors such as the antisemitic rapper Lowkey and the conspiracy theorist Vanessa Beeley) has been throwing its weight behind Hamas propaganda related to the war that the terrorist organisation instigated on October 7th.
Nevertheless, the sole “media outlet” quoted and promoted in a report by the corporation which regularly touts itself as an antidote to disinformation is that conspiracy theory promoting outfit.
Obviously the BBC’s journalism trainees are sorely in need of some instruction on the topic of what constitutes a reputable media outlet worthy of quotation and what does not.
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My late cousin irritatingly replied “What Do You Expect ?” to everything that was said to him. His words would be very apt to this item of IPC (aka BBC) non-news.