Saturday 2 April 2011

The BBC has responded to Louise Bagshawe MP over their lack of coverage concerning the murders of the Fogel family


Louise Bagshawe MP has complained and has now got a response.

The BBC's lack of coverage of this massacre (which many of you never heard of) was very typical of the corporation, some murders it seems are more newsworthy than others. This is particularly important when the longstanding bias against Israel and in favour of (or at least whitewashing of) the terrorist groups that face Israel. Time and time again the BBC has been called out for such bias and along with other examples it is highlighted brilliantly by Robin Aitken here.


Anyway this example has led to Louise Bagshawe MP complaining about it and she has at last extracted a response from our state broadcaster here. Well done Louise! But before we go any further it is worth pointing out that the worse part of this whole story was the appalling massacre itself, my sympathies are with the Fogel family whose tragic story has already left the front pages and in the case of the BBC was not mentioned.


Full text below:


MP Bagshawe: Overwhelmed by response

The BBC has admitted that the horrific murders of the Fogel family last month should have been covered on their 24 hour news channel. The massacre, in which a three-month-old baby was decapitated and her siblings' throats were slashed, did not appear anywhere across the BBC's television channels, and was mentioned only briefly on the broadcaster's news website. The BBC gave no mention of Hamas' statement praising the attack or of celebrations about the killings in the West Bank, yet did cover the Israeli government's announcement about settlement construction the following day. The broadcaster's poor coverage was highlighted by Louise Bagshawe, Conservative MP for Corby, who registered her disgust at what she called the BBC's "inexcusable" failure, in the JC as well as on Twitter and in a comment piece for the Daily Telegraph.


Ms. Bagshawe, a member of the Select Committee for Culture, Media and Sport, called on the BBC to admit their "lack of even handedness". She also demanded a list of the other stories which were featured on BBC News 24 on March 11, in preference. Her complaint was passed to the BBC's director of news, Helen Boaden, but it was five days before Ms. Boaden replied. During that time Ms Bagshawe received thousands of messages of support. In her response Ms Boaden said: "I agree with you that the significant nature of this murder of an entire family meant it should have been included on our television news output." However, she denied that the BBC had ignored the story "either because we did not care or because we pursue an anti-Israel agenda". She instead blamed "a remarkably busy weekend" because of the disaster in Japan, events in Libya and the spring meetings of the Liberal Democrats and the SNP which had to be covered "to ensure due political impartiality". "[These] left little room in the main television bulletins for a host of competing stories". Ms. Bagshawe said: "I'm not wholly satisfied with the answer which does not reflect the gravity of the lack of coverage. I would consider the matter finished if the BBC gave an expression of regret because of the hurt they have caused the Jewish community." She added: "I believe that this shows that the BBC will listen and will not merely reflexively defend a clear mistake."

5 comments:

Progressive Pinhead said...

Is this the same BBC that refused to air an appeal for aid for the civilian victims of Operation Cast Lead?

I remember reading about this on the BBC's website shortly after it happened, in fact I checked the date, the article came out before the one on the JPost's website that you linked to. That is already many times the coverage any Palestinian victim of Israeli state terrorism can expect to get from the BBC.


Just because the BBC does not suspend its news coverage every time an Israeli becomes a victim of the Middle East conflict does not mean that it supports armed Palestinian groups, as you suggest. That is an utterly absurd way to construe support and I doubt you'd accept that same standard if it were applied elsewhere. If you examine both the amount of coverage and the language of that coverage given to both Palestinian and Israeli victims of the conflict by the BBC, a bias quite the opposite of the one you suggest emerges.

Paul said...

I will leave your silly comment on here because it amuses me. It might have been an idea for you to take issue with the sources I cited instead of some curveball comment about them not airing an appeal by a pro Hamas agency.

Please consider:

1. The sources I cited such as Robin Aitken a former beeb employee, who has called them out for such bias and referenced them in his work.

2. The Beebs own response to Louise Bagshawe MP.

3. They have admitted said bias on previous occasions, such as when Barbara Plett their correspondent cried as some convoy containing a prominent dead terrorist left Ramallah.

The murder of the Fogel family was not covered in sufficient detail. The response by Hamas in which they supported it was not covered at all. As to the victims of Hamas during Cast Lead? Well the Beeb never aired Hamas own vitriol in which they openly admitted to using them as human shields. I wonder when they will get to reporting the recent retraction by Goldstone of his own report? Fact is Israel did not deliberately target civilians. The deaths of any civilians that did occur is the legal and moral responsibility of Hamas.

Oh happy New Year by the way not heard your emotive hysteria for a little while take care YA.

Progressive Pinhead said...

" I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left." .........Margaret Thatcher

Progressive Pinhead said...

It is well documented that Israel targeted civilians.

http://1humanity.blogspot.com/2009/04/debating-gaza.html

As for the BBC, their own reports have either suggested like the 2006 report that they favored Israel, or that they have been impartial., in spite of individual lapses. They have already covered Goldstone's article, they also covered an Amnesty International report accusing both Hamas and Israel of using human shields. I have no idea what you consider sufficient detail. It probably depends on whether the victim is Arab or Israeli. For example

And, Paul, just because Oxfam, Save the Children, and the Red Cross sometimes assists Arabs, does not mean that they are pro-Hamas organizations, as you suggest. If you have evidence for this accusation, then it would certainly be a front page story in every newspaper in Britain, otherwise its probably best to concede that point.

Paul said...

Again YA, Please consider:

1. The sources I cited such as Robin Aitken a former beeb employee, who has called them out for such bias and referenced them in his work.

2. The Beeb’s own response to Louise Bagshawe MP.

3. They have admitted said bias on previous occasions, such as when Barbara Plett their correspondent cried as some convoy containing a prominent dead terrorist left Ramallah.

Oh right the BBC in 'their own reports' said something different, why does that fail to surprise me?

I cannot expect you to read and thus critique the excellent work by Robin Aitken that I linked to, he is a former BBC employee. There is a tendency however for those on the far left to regard anything that does not blindly agree with them in all of their analysis (which is stretching that word) as right wing. Thus the BBC not being hard left and overtly critical and hostile towards Israel (which in some places it is look at Marcus Brigstocke’s support for the neo Marxist and anti-Semitic green party) must be right wing and pro-Israel in their immature view.
As to the bias in the western media in general read this by my friend Chas Newkey-Burden:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3389697,00.html

Chas’s blog is here http://www.oyvagoy.com/ .