The Asserson report analysed the BBC’s coverage during a four-month period beginning Oct 7, 2023 – the day Hamas carried out a brutal massacre in southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking another 251 into Gaza as hostages.
A team of around 20 lawyers and 20 data scientists contributed to the research, which used artificial intelligence to analyse nine million words of BBC output.
Researchers identified a total of 1,553 breaches of the BBC’s editorial guidelines, which included impartiality, accuracy, editorial values and public interest.
“The findings reveal a deeply worrying pattern of bias and multiple breaches by the BBC of its own editorial guidelines on impartiality, fairness and establishing the truth,” the report said.
Downplayed terrorism
It also found that the BBC repeatedly downplayed Hamas terrorism while presenting Israel as a militaristic and aggressive nation.
It claimed that some journalists used by the BBC in its coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict have previously shown sympathy for Hamas and even celebrated its acts of terror.
The report claims that a number of BBC reporters have shown extreme hostility to Israel, including BBC Arabic contributor Mayssaa Abdul Khalek, who is said to have called for “death to Israel” and defended a journalist who tweeted: “Sir Hitler, rise, there are a few people that need to be burned.”
It also accuses Marie-Jose Al Azzi, a Lebanese reporter, of being anti-Israel after she reportedly described the country as a “terrorist apartheid state” in a post that was subsequently deleted.
Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s international editor, is accused of excusing Hamas’s terrorist activities and comparing Israel to Putin’s Russia, while Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s chief international correspondent, is also cited for allegedly “downplaying” the October 7 attacks on Israel.
The report singles out the BBC’s Arabic channel, saying that it is one of the most biased of all global media outlets in its treatment of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
It identifies 11 cases where it claims the BBC Arabic’s coverage of the war has featured reporters who have previously made public statements in support of terrorism and specifically Hamas, without viewers being informed of this.
Researchers analysed the BBC coverage over the four-month period to assess the portrayal of war crimes.
“Hamas members filmed and publicised themselves committing acts which appear to constitute war crimes,” the report said, including the taking of hostages, wilful killing or murder, torture or inhuman treatment and rape or sexual violence.
But despite this, the report’s analysis of BBC coverage found that Israel was associated with war crimes four times more than Hamas (127 versus 30), with genocide 14 times more (283 versus 19) and with breaching international law six times more (167 versus 27).
