BBC’s ‘Newsround’ breaches BBC Academy style guide

A Christmas photo feature aimed at children breaches the BBC's own style guide on 'Israel and the Palestinians'.

On December 5th the BBC’s ‘Newsround’ website – which is aimed at children aged 6 to 12 – published a photo feature titled “Christmas trees from around the world”:

“It’s December so that means it’s almost Christmas! And of course it also means festive firs are being put up all over the world. Here are some of the best ones from 2019 so far.”

The item features seven captioned photographs taken in various locations: Lithuania, New York, Gaza, Prague, Ramallah, California and Bethlehem. In other words, three out of the seven images (42.8%) portray Christmas trees in areas ruled by either the Palestinian Authority or Hamas.

Moreover, the caption to the fifth image reads:

“Another great display in Palestine! Fireworks lit up the sky as Ramallah switched on the lights for their giant Christmas tree.”

That wording obviously suggests to readers that both Gaza (referring to a previous photo) and Ramallah are located in a country called Palestine.

The BBC Academy’s guide for journalists reporting on ‘Israel and the Palestinians’ states:

“…in day-to-day coverage of the Middle East you should not affix the name ‘Palestine’ to Gaza or the West Bank – rather, it is still an aspiration or an historical entity.”

BBC Watch has submitted a complaint concerning that use of terminology which misleads the BBC’s younger audiences.

Related Articles:

Breaches of the BBC Academy ‘style guide’ continue

The BBC can only find Christmas trees in ‘Palestine’  David Collier 

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