Apr 26 2013

BBC’s Davies suggests ulterior motives for IDF Sarin report

On April 23^rd 2013 the BBC News website published a report entitled “Syria has used chemical weapons, Israeli military says“. The article relates to comments made by Brigadier General Itai Brun – head of the Research Division of the IDF’s Military Intelligence Branch – at a security conference in Tel Aviv.

The original article was later updated to include subsequent remarks made by the US Secretary of State.

”Mr Kerry said he had called the Israeli prime minister seeking confirmation chemical weapons had been used by the Syrian regime, adding that Mr Netanyahu “was not in a position to confirm that… I do not know yet what the facts are.” “

The BBC Jerusalem Bureau’s Wyre Davies gave free rein to his own speculations regarding Secretary Kerry’s comments on Twitter.

Of course Brigadier General Brun’s observations came just over a week after Britain and France had expressed similar concerns whilst saying that they believe that they have credible evidence of Assad’s use of chemical weapons.

Curiously, however, Wyre Davies apparently did not feel the need at the time to speculate to his Twitter followers that the British and French statements might indicate that the United States was “being bounced into an uncomfortable position” by those countries.

And then, two days later, the US administration stated that in fact it has intelligence reports of its own regarding the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

Quite how Wyre Davies managed to reach the conclusion from Brigadier General Brun’s observations and the subsequent remarks made by Secretary Kerry that Israel wants “action against Syria” is a mystery. But it is surely a sad indication of a journalist’s priorities when weaving an imaginary intrigue trumps human concern for those on the receiving end of attacks with chemical weapons.

Apr 21 2013

BBC’s Wyre Davies Tweeting for illegal building

Here are two consecutive Tweets sent by the BBC Jerusalem Bureau’s Wyre Davies on April 18^th 2013 to his 14,775 followers. (Read from the bottom up).

Davies apparently did not bother to fact check the details of the incident before sending his Tweets, seemingly making do with whatever he was told by his sources. But BBC Watch did check out the details of story with COGAT.

The site of the Al Mahrour (also spelt Al Makhrour) restaurant is situated in Area C where, according to the Oslo accords signed willingly by the representatives of the Palestinian people, Israel has administrative and security control.

The restaurant was constructed without planning permission or the appropriate building permits and hence was the subject of a demolition order issued in 2005 and carried out in May 2012. The restaurant was then rebuilt – also illegally without the necessary planning permission or building permits. The restaurant’s owner/constructor was given the opportunity to appear before the planning committee of the Civil Administration. A second demolition order was issued and that was carried out on April 18^th 2013. The electricity line to which Davies refers was also illegally connected.

One presumes that back in his native Wales, Wyre Davies would not raise so much as an eyebrow if his local authority issued a demolition order for a food and drink establishment intended to host members of the public which made no attempt to comply with planning regulations on issues such as fire safety, sanitation, hygiene, structure safety, drainage, waste disposal, electricity supply and so forth. In fact, he might be quite relieved to see such an obvious disregard for public safety being addressed by those responsible.

Quite why Davies should consider the safety of potential visitors to the Al Mahrour restaurant any less important is a mystery. But what is clear is that Davies’ Tweets breach BBC Editorial Guidelines on both accuracy and impartiality, as well as BBC News social media guidance and the specific guidelines on the use of microblogs.

“Those involved in editorial or production areas must take particular care to ensure that they do not undermine the integrity or impartiality of the BBC or its output on their blogs or microblogs. For example those involved in News and Current Affairs or factual programming should not advocate a particular position on high profile controversial subjects relevant to their areas.”

Wyre Davies has obviously lost the ability to report from this part of the world without the injection of his own personal views and prejudices – thus severely compromising his employer’s reputation for impartiality.

Mar 26 2013

The politics of BBC approved terminology on Israel’s security fence

A series of Tweets sent by the BBC Jerusalem Bureau’s Wyre Davies on the last day of the Obama visit to Israel provides an opportunity to take a closer look at a specific case of BBC approved terminology.

Davies’ use of the phrase “separation barrier” complies with the BBC’s “Key Terms” – established for use by its journalists covering subjects relating to “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” in the wake of the Balen Report, but only partially made public in 2006 at the recommendation of the Thomas Report.

The rationale for the use of the term “separation barrier” is described in the “Key Terms” as follows:

“BARRIER

BBC journalists should try to avoid using terminology favoured by one side or another in any dispute.

The BBC uses the terms “barrier”, “separation barrier” or “West Bank barrier” as acceptable generic descriptions to avoid the political connotations of “security fence” (preferred by the Israeli government) or “apartheid wall” (preferred by the Palestinians).

The United Nations also uses the term “barrier”.

Of course, a reporter standing in front of a concrete section of the barrier might choose to say “this wall” or use a more exact description in the light of what he or she is looking at.” [emphasis added]

Obviously, both the avoidance of use of the term “security fence” and the employment in its place of the phrase “separation barrier” have their own political connotations – which apparently escape the BBC.

The BBC’s decision to eschew the term “security fence” means that it consistently and deliberately conceals from its audiences the real reasons for the construction of that fence. Concurrently, its use of the phrase “separation barrier” implies that the fence was built for the purpose of dividing one thing from another and in no way reflects the fact that it actually came into being in order to protect Israeli civilians from Palestinian terror.

Things become even more clumsy when BBC reporters try to add ‘context’ to their use of the phrase “separation barrier”, as this recent example shows:

“The motorcade’s route took Mr Obama through Israel’s controversial West Bank barrier, Israeli security sources said. Israel says the barrier is the only way to defend against militant attacks, but Palestinians view the structure as the prelude to the annexation of occupied land.” [emphasis added]

Here we see that not only is the security fence turned into a “barrier” in accordance with BBC guidelines, but it is also presented as “controversial”. It takes a special kind of perversity to describe a structure which has proven its ability as one of several (and not “the only” as stated above) counter-terrorism methods used to save lives as “controversial”, of course, but it is that same factor which apparently allows the BBC to ignore the hard evidence of the security fence’s efficacy, instead employing the much-used phrase “Israel says” in order to cast doubt upon those facts.

“A comparison of the above data shows a decrease of slightly more than 90% in the number of attacks: from an average of 26 attacks a year before the fence, to three attacks after erection of the anti-terrorist fence. This means a decrease of more than 70% in the number of Israelis murdered: from an average of 103 slain per year before the fence to 28 after erection of the fence. Similarly, this means a drop of more than 85% in the number of wounded: from an average of 688 a year before the fence to 83 wounded per year after it was built. ”

Equally perverse are the standard BBC description of suicide bombers and other terrorists as “militants” and the attempt to juxtapose the proven evidence of the security fence’s role in saving lives with the politically motivated fantasy narrative of various Palestinian and anti-Israeli factions as though they were of equal factual value. In this case, the BBC’s boiler-plate attempt at impartiality just makes it look ridiculous.

Interestingly, barriers constructed in order to thwart terrorism on British soil are allotted very different terminology by the BBC.

The BBC’s choice of and adherence to the inaccurate term “separation barrier” completely airbrushes out of the picture the horrific Palestinian terrorism of the Second Intifada. That in turn distorts historic facts and results in diminished audience understanding of the conflict. The fact that the authors of the “Key Terms” (who include Middle East reporting ‘gate-keepers’ Jeremy Bowen and Malcolm Balen) actually state in writing that they consider the title of a structure designed to save human lives to have “political connotations” reveals volumes as regards their own adoption of a specific political narrative and raises severe doubts as to their capability for impartiality.

Mar 22 2013

Selective BBC reporting on hacking of its own Twitter account

h/t JK

As our eagle-eyed friends at The Commentator noticed yesterday, the BBC Twitter account running under the banner “never get caught out by the weather” was itself caught out when it was hacked by a pro-Assad group calling itself ‘The Syrian Electronic Army’.

The BBC News website later ran an article on the subject on its technology page in which it was revealed that other BBC Twitter accounts were also hacked. The BBC reported:

“A series of tweets about fake weather conditions in Middle Eastern countries began appearing on Thursday afternoon.”

“Alongside the standard tweets from the weather feed such as “‘last night was chilly” some more bizarre comments began emerging.

They included: “Saudi weather station down due to head-on collision with camel.”

Another read: “Chaotic weather forecast for Lebanon as the government decides to distance itself from the Milky Way.” “

The article also quotes an internet security consultant as stating:

“The good news is that the hack doesn’t appear to have been done with the intention of spreading malicious links or scams. Instead, it appears that the Syrian Electronic Army are trying to spread political messages about Syria instead.”

In actual fact, some of the Tweets were considerably less benign than the BBC tries to make out in this article, with one making a Helen Thomas-style suggestion that residents of Haifa should “return to Poland” and another portraying a nuclear attack on Tel Aviv.

Why would the BBC apparently find it necessary to tone down the hackers’ attitudes by ignoring those two offensive Tweets in its report on the incident?

Feb 24 2013

BBC’s Jon Donnison Tweets unverified information again

Will the BBC’s Jon Donnison ever learn?

For those not familiar with Twitter, the letters MT at the beginning mean ‘modified tweet’. In other words, Donnison took someone else’s Tweet and modified it before retweeting it to his own followers. In this case, the original Tweet came from the none too objective Reuters correspondent in Ramallah, Noah Browning, just seven minutes before Donnison’s retweet.

Of course neither Browning nor Donnison have produced any evidence to support their claim that Arafat Jaradat, who died suddenly on February 23^rd in Meggido prison, was “in interrogation” at the time of his death. At present, the suspected cause of death is a cardiac arrest, but the full investigation into the incident has of course not yet been completed.

“Investigators have already started collecting testimonies from guards at the prison and those in contact with Jaradat before his death. Defense officials have offered Palestinian Authority officials to be involved in the autopsy, if one is conducted, and said they will be updated on the investigation.”

The so far uncorroborated rumour that Jaradat was “in interrogation” at the time of his death was promoted by the PA’s Minister for Prisoner Affairs:

” “Arafat Jaradat… was arrested a few days ago. He was killed during the investigation,” the Palestinian minister in charge of prisoner affairs Issa Qaraqaa told AFP.

“We demand the creation of an international commission of inquiry to probe the circumstances of his death,” Qaraqaa added.”

The Minister seems not to have coordinated his version of the story with representatives of other Palestinian groups:

“Qadura Fares, head of the Palestinian Prisoners Club, denounced Israel and accused it of negligence. He said Jaradat died because he was not properly diagnosed and hospitalized. He called on the international community to intervene to prevent similar cases.”

Jaradat had been in detention for several days:

“Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, said in a statement to reporters that the 30-year-old Jaradat was arrested on Feb. 18 after residents in his West Bank village of Saeer said he was involved in a rock-throwing attack that injured an Israeli citizen. Jaradat admitted to the charge, as well to another West Bank rock-throwing incident last year, the Shin Bet said.”

Unsurprisingly, more rioting took place after the news of Jaradat’s death became public and the violence continued into Sunday, mainly in areas around Hebron and with attempts made to block roads. In recent weeks, there has been an orchestrated rise in the level of violence, with the self-inflicted hunger strikes by four Palestinian prisoners used as leverage. As veteran reporter and analyst Khaled Abu Toameh wrote recently:

“Although the Palestinian Authority probably does not want an all-out confrontation between Palestinians and Israelis at this stage, some Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah believe that a “mini-intifada” would serve the Palestinians’ interests, especially on the eve of Obama’s visit.

The officials hope that scenes of daily clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians in the West Bank will prompt Obama to exert pressure on the Israeli government to make far-reaching concessions to the Palestinian Authority.

This is why the Palestinian Authority leadership has been encouraging its constituents lately to wage a “popular intifada” against Israel, each time finding another excuse to initiate confrontations between Palestinians and Israel.”

Donnison’s latest irresponsible contribution (hallmarked, of course, with the stamp of BBC reliability) to the reservoir of unsubstantiated accusations and rumours which feed these violent confrontations shows that he has learned nothing from his previous trigger-happy Twitter blunder.

Some organisations committed to accuracy might see that as a liability.

Jan 15 2013

Compromising public perceptions of BBC impartiality

Sadly – for both its colleagues in the field in which it operates and the many people around the world in need of the human rights sector – there is nothing novel about the seemingly interminable ability of ‘Human Rights Watch’ to bring itself into repeated disrepute and compromise its own reputation for impartiality.

A long line of scandals includes fund-raising in Saudi Arabia, an HRW employee with a penchant for Nazi memorabilia, cooperation with the Ghaddafi regime and accusations – including from its own founder – of poor research methods.

Only last week the Wall Street Journal informed us of yet another problematic aspect to HRW. It turns out that HRW’s Executive Director of almost twenty years, Kenneth Roth, does not consider Iran to be in violation of the UN Genocide Convention.

“Asked in 2010 about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s statement that Israel “must be wiped off the map,” Mr. Roth suggested that the Iranian president has been misunderstood. “There was a real question as to whether he actually said that,” Mr. Roth told The New Republic, because the Persian language lacks an idiom for wiping off the map. Then again, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s own English-language website translated his words that way, and the main alternative translation—”eliminated from the pages of history”—is no more benign. Nor is Mr. Ahmadinejad an outlier in the regime. Iran’s top military officer declared earlier this year that “the Iranian nation is standing for its cause that is the full annihilation of Israel.”

Mr. Roth’s main claim is legalistic: Iran’s rhetoric doesn’t qualify as “incitement”—which is illegal under the United Nations Genocide Convention of 1948—but amounts merely to “advocacy,” which is legal.”

As the article’s author David Feith rightly points out, Roth’s approach conveniently ignores Iran’s sponsorship of its proxies Hamas and Hizballah which are quite open about their aims.

Three days after the Roth story broke, HRW published yet another of its rapidly produced reports – this time accusing Israel of “a clear violation of the laws of war” during the latest conflict between it and terrorist organisations in the Gaza Strip. Like its problematic 2006 report on the Second Lebanon War, this report is based on ‘evidence’ gathered from local residents – with apparently no attempt made to first establish the possibility of their affiliations to terror organisations – and without the author Fred Abrahams – who is not a munitions expert – having been able to inspect the remnants of what he presumes was “ a large aerial bomb”.

Needless to say, the deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians – with fatal results or without – is not yet the subject of a report by HRW.

Of course known Hamas cheerleaders were quick to embrace, publicise and promote the latest HRW report. Among them was professional anti-Israel campaigner, BDS promoter and advocate of the one-state ‘solution’ Ben White who is perhaps best known for his ‘understanding’ of antisemites.

White chose two BBC journalists – Paul Danahar and Jon Donnison – as recipients of one of his many Tweets on the subject of the HRW report.

Less than three hours later, Paul Danahar sent Tweets of his own on the subject:

Coincidence?

Even if White’s Tweet did not prompt Danahar’s own, the many problematic aspects of HRW’s reputation and the fact that its latest report had already been warmly embraced as propaganda material by known anti-Israel activists should surely have prompted Danahar to recall that the BBC Editorial Guidelines state in section 4.4.13:

Nov 27 2012

BBC’s Jon Donnison summoned to Government Press Office hearing

BBC Watch can now confirm that a report (Hebrew) which appeared on the Israeli website ‘Walla!’ on November 25^th2012 is correct.

An article on the same subject in English also appeared at The Algemeiner .

The BBC’s Jon Donnison, together with the head of the BBC Jerusalem Bureau and head of the Foreign Press Association, Paul Danahar , has been summoned by the Government Press Office in Israel to a hearing this coming Wednesday (November 28^th) on the subject of Donnison’s Tweet of a picture of a child casualty from Syria as though it were from Gaza – as first publicised by BBC Watch on November 19^th 2012.

Potentially, this exceptional and unusual step on the part of the GPO could lead to Donnison’s Press Credentials being revoked, which would make it very difficult indeed for him to work in the region.

BBC Watch’s Managing Editor Hadar Sela said:

“It is unfortunate that Donnison has jeopardised his career in such a manner, through his failure to adhere to the BBC’s own Editorial Guidelines on accuracy and impartiality and its existing guidance on the use of social media.

The BBC’s funding British public, as well as millions of people around the world who rely on the BBC for trustworthy information, no doubt also await the results of a BBC investigation into Donnison’s breach of his organisation’s Editorial Guidelines.”

Nov 26 2012

Does the BBC’s use of Twitter meet its editorial guidelines?

The use of Twitter during Operation ‘Pillar of Cloud’ marked another step along the ever-changing road of media coverage of conflict zones. The BBC was of course no exception, with its correspondents on the ground using the medium of social media to reach its audiences around the world in real-time.

But it was not just those who follow ‘our man in Jerusalem or Gaza’ who got news updates straight from Twitter. The BBC also made use of its correspondents’ Tweets as material for updates and articles.

Here is a screenshot of one of the BBC News website’s Middle East pages whilst the site was running live updates throughout Operation ‘Pillar of Cloud’. As you can see, those updates included ‘raw’ Tweets from BBC correspondents on the ground.

Another example of the way in which the BBC made use of its correspondent’s Twitter activity is this article – made up entirely of Tweets by Paul Danahar of the BBC’s Jerusalem Bureau.

So the BBC obviously considers its correspondents’ Twitter accounts an appropriate source of information suitable for dissemination to wider audiences. But that raises several issues which the BBC does not seem to have entirely thought through.

As we mentioned in this article , a contributor recently informed us that:

“The BBC (Audience Services) has confirmed to me that their complaints procedure can be used on tweets by BBC journalists and presenters on their BBC Twitter pages.”

That presumably means that the Twitter accounts of BBC journalists and presenters are subject to the same Editorial Guidelines as the rest of BBC-produced content, seeing as the basis for complaints is a perceived breach of one or more of those Guidelines. Certainly, according to those same guidelines, any material gathered for use in a BBC programme or article – whether sourced from Twitter or not – should comply with editorial standards.

And yet throughout Operation ‘Pillar of Cloud’ we saw worrying issues of accuracy and impartiality arise frequently on various BBC-linked Twitter accounts – particularly when journalists were rather ‘trigger happy’; rushing to send out information which had not been properly verified, often from unreliable sources – with Jon Donnison’s distribution of a photograph taken in Syria as though it were from Gaza now being the most well-known example.

Example of lack of accuracy (several of the Palestinian casualties were terrorists):

Examples of badly sourced information:

Example of lack of accuracy (Israel did not target journalists in Gaza, but journalists in Gaza were used as human shields by terrorists):

Example of lack of accuracy and impartiality (No Israeli warships fired ‘randomly’):

Example of lack of impartiality and accuracy (at least 7 of the dead were known to be terror operatives):

Example of lack of accuracy (Tel Aviv is not Israel’s capital):

In some cases – but far from all – corrections were later put out or apologies made. But of course the very nature of Twitter means that corrections are not guaranteed to reach everyone who read – and believed – erroneous information put out by such a trusted source as a BBC journalist or an official BBC account, especially if that information came their way via a retweet from a third party.

In this new environment in which often unverified and improperly sourced information is reaching audiences either directly from the Twitter accounts of BBC journalists or via BBC articles based on those Tweets, there is an obvious need for the BBC to invest in some serious thinking as to how its employees’ Twitter feeds can comply with its existing editorial standards of accuracy and impartiality.

Nov 21 2012

Terror in Tel Aviv: scare quotes at the BBC.

Here is the BBC’s report on the terrorist bombing of a number 142 Dan bus in central Tel Aviv on Wednesday lunchtime, November 21^st:

A deliberate terrorist attack is termed a ‘Bomb blast’ – in ‘well, that’s what they’re telling us’ inverted commas.

The article continues:

“There has been an explosion on a bus in Israel’s commercial capital Tel Aviv, police say, amid continuing exchanges between Israel and militants in Gaza.

There are at least 10 injuries in what police called a “terrorist attack”.”

Further down, the liberal sprinkling of scare quotes continues:

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman Ofir Gendelman said on his Twitter account that the explosion was caused by a bomb and that it was “terrorist attack”.

Emergency services say five of the wounded in the bus explosion are in a serious or moderate condition.

An Israeli who witnessed the explosion told Army Radio the bus was “completely charred”.

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper said the blast occurred on the corner of Shaul Hamelech and Henrietta Szold.

It said the injured were being taken to Ichilov hospital and that roadblocks had been set up in the area to search for a suspected bomber.

The attack took place on the eighth day of exchanges between Israel and militants in Gaza.

Some 139 Palestinians and five Israelis have been killed.

Celebratory gunfire reportedly rang out in Gaza City when local radio relayed news of the bus attack.”

Before we are tempted to attribute the generous use of so much unnecessary punctuation to BBC caution until the picture is fully clear, we should perhaps compare and contrast with its reporting of the strike on the antennae of two office blocks in Gaza City earlier this week.

What the above report does not include is reports on Twitter by its correspondents on the ground in Gaza that Hamas immediately took responsibility for the attack.

The BBC’s Paul Danahar appeared to be trying to suggest that the target of the attack was of a military nature, which makes an interesting contrast to some of his tweets earlier in the week.

(By the way, here is a recent event in Gaza which the plethora of BBC reporters on the ground there appears to have decided not to report, apart from a brief 29 words in this item.)

Update:

The BBC now has footage of the aftermath of the attack up on its website – also broadcast on BBC News.

Note the wording of the report’s synopsis as it appears on the website: [emphasis added]

“At least 10 people have been injured in an explosion on a bus in Israel’s commercial capital, Tel Aviv, in what one Israeli official described as a “terrorist attack”. “

BBC Watch

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