BBC’s Wyre Davies Tweeting for illegal building

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

Davies Beit Jala tweets

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 18th 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.

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