The BBC is facing fresh criticism over its coverage of the Middle East after being accused of “obsessing” over Gaza while keeping a “near-total silence” on Iran.
Alex Gandler, spokesman for the Israeli embassy in London, said the scale of the broadcaster’s reporting on Gaza “vastly exceeds” its coverage of crises elsewhere, including conflict in Iran.
Several people were killed during unrest in Iran yesterday, according to Iranian media and rights groups, amid the biggest protests to hit the Islamic Republic for three years over worsening economic conditions.
Critics have questioned the mainstream media’s coverage of the protests.
Mr Gandler said: “The scale of BBC coverage devoted to Gaza, including over the past few days, vastly exceeds that given to wars and humanitarian crises elsewhere in the world.
“At the same time, the near-total silence on Iran is striking.
“A broadcaster that claims global impartiality cannot obsess over one theatre of conflict while largely ignoring the regime that destabilises the entire region.”
The BBC has however rejected the claims.
A spokeswoman for the broadcaster said: “These criticisms are factually incorrect; we have been covering the protests in Iran daily across all of our platforms, including our main news bulletins, in English and via BBC News Persian.”
It is not the first time the BBC has been criticised over its coverage of Gaza.
Mr Gandler accused the BBC of showing ‘near-total silence’ on its coverage of Iran
| PA
The broadcaster faced backlash over its documentary, Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, which aired in February last year, after it was revealed it had been narrated by the son of a Hamas leader.
Ofcom described the programme’s failure to disclose information on the narrator’s father as “materially misleading”.
“Our investigation found that the programme’s failure to disclose that the narrator’s father held a position in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading,” the media regulator previously said.
“It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he provided.”
The BBC faced criticism over a Gaza documentary broadcast last year which was found to be narrated by the son of a Hamas leader
| BBC
The BBC apologised after acknowledging “serious flaws” in the making of the programme and removed it as an available option online.
Separately, an internal report leaked at the end of last year claimed the BBC’s Arabic news channel “minimised Israeli suffering” in the war against Gaza in order to “paint Israel as the aggressor”.
BBC Arabic, which is part of the World Service, is funded in part by a grant from the Foreign Office and the through the license fee.
Claims and allegations against Israel were said to have been “raced to air” without appropriate checks, while BBC Arabic gave more time to statements from Hamas.
The memo also said the channel had “a desire always to believe the worst about Israel”, while giving “unjustifiable weight” to Hamas’ claims about the death toll in Gaza.
The Biased Broadcasting Corporation is corrupt. Its news coverage is notoriously partisan and lacks any objectivity. It is a national disgrace that our money should be propping up an institution that is unfit for purpose and that exists solely to serve itself and its own one-sided agenda