MESSAGE
| DATE | 2024-06-22 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] know your enemy
|
telegraph.co.uk
BBC accused of not disclosing that killed Palestinian journalists were
Hamas supporters
Patrick Sawer
7–9 minutes
Pro-Israeli body says corporation’s Arabic arm failed to point out that
55 dead media workers had advocated killing of its countrymen
The BBC has been accused of failing to tell viewers that some
Palestinians it had described as “journalists” killed by Israel were
Hamas supporters.
Media campaigners have pointed out that some of those highlighted by the
corporation as having been killed since Israel launched its response to
the Oct 7 attacks appeared to be militants who had praised and even
worked for the terror group.
They said the BBC was too quick to describe Palestinian militants and
activists killed in the conflict as journalists.
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis
(Camera) – which lobbies for a fair representation of Israel – claimed
that 55 out of 69 Gazans and Lebanese described as journalists in a BBC
Arabic article about media workers killed since Oct 7 had either voiced
support for the killing of Israelis or had worked for outlets which did.
Two of these – Mohammad Jarghoun and Assaad Shamlakh – were mourned by
friends on social media as members of the “resistance” and “jihad
fighters”, while a third, Mustafa el-Sawaf, had been a member of Hamas’s
political leadership for nearly two decades.
Mohammad Jarghoun was mourned by friends on social media as a supporter
of Hamas
Mohammad Jarghoun was mourned by friends on social media as a supporter
of Hamas
Additionally, Israel’s Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information
Centre has claimed that more than half the journalists that the Hamas
media office says were killed in the Gaza Strip between Oct 7 2023 and
Feb 18 2024 were affiliated with terrorist organisations, including 44
from Hamas and 19 from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
The claims came as it transpired last week that three Israeli hostages
were being held captive in the home of a Palestinian journalist and his
father, a doctor, before they were rescued by Israeli troops.
Assaad Shamlakh was painted as a jihad fighter by his friends after his
death
Assaad Shamlakh was painted as a jihad fighter by his friends after his
death
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) accused Abdallah al-Jamal, the
journalist, of being a “Hamas terrorist” who had detained Almog Meir
Jan, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv in his family home.
Jamal, who wrote for The Palestine Chronicle, a news website based in
Washington, was killed along with his father, Ahmed, and his wife,
Fatima, in the raid that freed the hostages last Saturday. The IDF said
Jamal had also been a contributor to Al Jazeera.
The claims raise questions about the extent to which some Palestinian
journalists can be regarded as independent and objective reporters
working for recognised media organisations.
A spokesman for Camera Arabic said: “The 55 Gazans and Lebanese in
question were not listed by BBC reporter Layla Bashar al-Kloub simply
because they were civilians in conflict whose deaths ‘are to be
regretted’. Rather, it is due to their supposed ‘journalistic work’ that
the BBC elevated them apart from other civilians in the first place.
‘Political affiliations’
“Alas, Arabic editors and the ECU [the BBC’s executive complaints unit]
alike kept insisting that the way these individuals and their workplaces
celebrated killings of Jewish civilians and served as propaganda arms
for Hamas, PIJ and Hezbollah was simply a matter of ‘political
affiliations’. By refusing to amend the list, they also indicated
Arabic-speaking audiences are better off not knowing anything about this.”
Camera Arabic added: “Evidently, BBC staff members are still under the
impression that they share the same profession with people who spent
their careers disgracing it for the sake of murderous ideologies – a
fact which suggests that their own journalism is compromised. This
should be cause for concern to both fellow journalists and the
corporation’s funding public.”
BBC Arabic has faced repeated criticism since Oct 7 for its coverage of
the conflict and what some have claimed is the biased attitude of some
of its broadcasters towards Israel.
The Telegraph disclosed last month that the corporation’s head office
had been forced to correct BBC Arabic’s coverage of the Gaza conflict
every other day on average during the first five months of the war.
BBC Arabic corrected its coverage of the Gaza conflict every other day
on average during the first five months of the war
BBC Arabic corrected its coverage of the Gaza conflict every other day
on average during the first five months of the war Credit: Carl
Court/Getty Images Europe
BBC Arabic, whose output Tim Davie, the corporation’s director-general,
has described as “something we should be very proud of”, made 80
corrections in the five months after the Oct 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.
In response to Camera’s complaint, Richard Hutt, the complaints director
of the BBC’s executive complaints unit, said: “BBC Arabic have said that
the article was a list of journalists and media workers killed in the
conflict (on both sides) regardless of their political affiliations.
“Beyond this, they make the point that such reporting is legitimate
notwithstanding any such affiliations or connections between their
employers and proscribed groups, given that journalists are nonetheless
civilians in a category of worker which is particularly vulnerable in a war.
‘Purpose is to record the loss’
“Moreover, they make the point that reporting the deaths of journalists
is not to put them in a positive light or to comment on the quality of
their work.”
He added: “In general I would expect BBC Arabic online audiences to
understand that those working in the media in Gaza may have their own
views, and may work for outlets with particular positions or political
affiliations.
“The purpose of the piece is not to pass judgment, but to record the loss.”
A BBC spokesman said: “Our report covers the deaths of journalists over
the course of the conflict, in Gaza, Lebanon and Israel, regardless of
their media outlets’ political affiliations, and takes no account of
their views or assessments of their journalism. We reported on
journalists who have died who were not BBC staff and therefore not
subject to our impartiality guidelines.”
License this content
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
_______________________________________________
Hangout mailing list
Hangout-at-nylxs.com
http://lists.mrbrklyn.com/mailman/listinfo/hangout
|
|
