Defending The BBC's Coverage

Thursday 3rd 2006f August 2006

Over the past month, there has been considerable debate over media coverage of the Israel-Lebanon crisis. Many have criticised the BBC for failing to give a balanced view of the conflict, claiming it has given far more weight to the impact of the war on Lebanese civilians than it has devoted to the suffering of Israeli citizens. In an exclusive piece for TJ, Head of BBC Newsgathering Francesca Unsworth, defends the corporation’s coverage against allegations of bias and imbalance.

As I write it is now 20 days since Israel launched air strikes on Hezbollah positions in South Lebanon in response to the raid on an Israeli army unit in Northern Israel and the kidnapping of two soldiers. It followed months of rocket attacks by Hezbollah on Northern Israel.

Since then our programmes have devoted hours of coverage to this story. We have sent huge teams to the region – In Israel we have around 20 to 30 people, spread between Jerusalem and Haifa, and similar numbers in Lebanon.

Our job is to report this complex story in a way which is understandable for our audiences. We need to be on the ground in as many locations as possible to show what is happening day to day; to explain the causes; the strategies of the two sides, the response of the international community and address how it might be resolved.

But inevitably - and rightly so - a substantial part of our reporting is devoted to the impact of war on ordinary people and the suffering it causes. For the last ten days or so, the images of the destruction of the communities of South Lebanon have filled the screens. But does that equate to a greater emphasis on Lebanese suffering at the expense of Israelis?

The BBC has a huge amount of news airtime across many outlets which gives us the ability to have a very broad agenda. But criticism of our coverage tends to focus on the main programmes with the large audiences, such as the BBC One bulletins or the Today programme.

It is certainly true that these programmes have covered extensively the bombing of Lebanese towns and cities and its results. But our reporting teams have been in Northern Israel too – in Haifa and Tiberias and other places where the Hezbollah rockets have been falling. We’ve reported on the effects on those communities as well. The casualties may have been fewer here, but the climate of fear has been as great, and we have reflected that.

Since July 12th , an analysis of the 10 O’Clock News, our flagship TV bulletin seen by an average of 5 million Britons, shows that the Middle East conflict was the lead story on 18 occasions.

During that period there has only been one programme which did not feature a report from Israel and on several occasions there have been two. Five times the Israeli end of the story has been the main aspect of the coverage.

We have included reports on the deaths of 8 people killed in Haifa after a rocket attack on the bus station; the impact of living under the constant attack of rockets in the village of Akko; Interviews with the families of the missing soldiers: the anxieties of Israeli families as their husbands and sons are called up as reservists; the plight of families forced to live in shelters or to move south to avoid the rockets; and the deaths of the Israeli soldiers ambushed in Bint Jbail. We’ve also followed every step of the political developments in Jerusalem.

Given these efforts, it’s puzzling therefore that there should be an impression amongst some of our critics that we are underplaying Israeli hardships. There are fewer deaths among Israelis – approximately ten Lebanese deaths to every one Israeli and however traumatising it is to live under the threat of constant rocket attack, there has not been the same level of destruction of towns and villages as in Lebanon.

Given this, would our critics prefer that we apportioned air time on the basis of casualty figures? Equal concentration on Israeli victims could simply further highlight the current imbalance between the two sides in terms of firepower, and might simply reinforce views that this is an unjust war.

Perhaps the real criticism is that we have failed to fully explain why Israel felt compelled to launch this action and why they believe it is vital to see it through. But I am not sure that this case is made through trying to measure victim hood. It can only be done by providing background and context to our reporting and a look at the wider forces shaping the region, and as I’ve made clear, I think we’ve made every effort to offer that.

The BBC’S governors have just commissioned an independent report to assess the impartiality of the BBC’s coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the past year. The report cleared News coverage of any suggestion of what it called “deliberate of systematic bias”. But it highlighted a different challenge – our audiences were saying that they did not understand the conflict and did not see it as important or interesting. It was for this reason that last year we appointed a Middle East Editor – Jeremy Bowen – to provide more of the historical context to the conflict. That’s what he has been doing on a daily basis for the last three weeks, supported by, among others, our World Affairs editor, John Simpson, another highly seasoned observer of Middle Eastern Affairs.

If people believe we are not being fair, it might be because they see and hear us reflecting views and perspectives which are anathema to them but which – in our terms – represent so many more pieces in the jigsaw. We need to show how all the pieces fit together, and we can’t do that without offending some sensibilities. What this criticism demonstrates to us is the constant need to provide our audiences comprehensive, understandable and impartial explanation which allows them to make up their own minds about the best of way resolving the wider issues of the Middle East conflict.