Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

The tagline is "As many question BBC’s coverage, three academics tell openDemocracy why they don't think the broadcaster is impartial", which I think sums up the article accurately. That doesn't seem to add much aside from proving that there are outsiders (impartial or biased, we don't really know) that agree with one side. It shouldn't be surprising that with any culture war issue, than you can find some academics to be on your side.

>https://novaramedia.com/2025/06/16/bbc-systematically-biased...

Skimming the article, the methodology used is very questionable. For instance:

>Despite Gaza suffering 34 times more casualties than Israel, the BBC ran almost equal numbers of humanising victim profiles.

If you think 1 death = 1 coverage, then clearly BBC is biased. However, 1 death = 1 coverage is clearly not how anyone expect the media should operate. How many people die in civil wars in Sudan or Congo, compared to how much coverage are they getting? Does that mean the BBC has a anti-Sudan bias? Moreover should each death really merit equal coverage? Would it be biased if BBC ran more pieces about the sad plight of Ukrainian soldiers compared to Russian soldiers?

>It was also found to have attached “Hamas-run health ministry” to Palestinian casualty figures in 1,155 articles – almost every time the Palestinian death toll was referenced across BBC articles.

Why is this an issue? In the Russsia-Ukranie war for instance, if you cite casualty figures from Russia, it's pretty obvious that it's from the Kremlin. The Gaza Health Ministry is actually Hamas run, and that fact isn't readily apparent.

There are other serious allegations made in that piece that I don't have expertise to comment on, but the above two snippets don't inspire much confidence.

> Why is this an issue? In the Russsia-Ukranie war for instance, if you cite casualty figures from Russia, it's pretty obvious that it's from the Kremlin. The Gaza Health Ministry is actually Hamas run, and that fact isn't readily apparent.

Hamas is the legitimate government of Palestine. "Health Ministry" would be just as accurate and much less biased than "Hamas-run Health Ministry". The implicit accusation of bias against them by emphasizing the identity of the source is also extremely glaring when put into context; nearly every outside observer that's not an Israeli or US government organization to analyze the data and numbers has come to the conclusion that the "Hamas-run Health Ministry"'s number are an undercount.

Yes.

They might have defacto control, but most countries don't recognize Hamas as the "legitimate government".

>Hamas is the legitimate government of Palestine. "Health Ministry" would be just as accurate and much less biased than "Hamas-run Health Ministry". The implicit accusation of bias against them by emphasizing the identity of the source is also extremely glaring when put into context; nearly every outside observer that's not an Israeli or US government organization to analyze the data and numbers has come to the conclusion that the "Hamas-run Health Ministry"'s number are an undercount.

So if the BBC was covering the election in Venezuela, would it be "biased" to point out that the election results were from the "government controlled" electoral commission, and that it was packed with Maduro's cronies? After all, the electoral commission is probably the "legitimate" authority for counting votes, so why point out it's staffed by government cronies? Just say that the opposition claims that their guy won, but the electoral authority said Maduro won. End of story. Or is it only biased if the journalist thinks something fishy is going on (ie. the vote was rigged in favor of Maduro)? How would we adjudicate this? This just inevitably devolves into "if you support Israel then saying anything bad about them is bias, and if you oppose Israel then saying anything good about them is bias".

One major difference that I see - though of course I can't speak for the journalists - is that my country and tax dollars are directly involved in this conflict. Every child who burns alive, every man woman and child raped in an Israeli camp, every doctor or medic killed by targeted drone or sniper fire is in a sense in my name. I'm not saying Sudanese political instability isn't impacted by western actions, but this conflict is very real for a lot of people because of a direct, material involvement.

Journalists maybe feel this way, too?

I do also think this is a pretty straightforward distinction, and suspect your bringing up a fundamentally different conflict to say something like "well you think Israeli deaths get too much coverage in this war, why do Sudanese deaths not get very much?" is weird and borderline disingenuous.

Retaliating to that to get your hostages back and to stop the endless attacks on your race is not genocide.

How often should the media report deaths? Each time a group of people die? Each time bodies are found?

> How many people die in civil wars in Sudan or Congo, compared to how much coverage are they getting? Does that mean the BBC has a anti-Sudan bias?

Are you familiar with the saying, “when a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, then does it make a sound”?

> Moreover should each death really merit equal coverage?

I would assume that an individual or a group of people that aspire towards neutrality, fairness, and humanitarian principles would treat one life as the same as another.

For reference, here is the BBC mission and excerpts from its charter available at https://www.bbc.com/aboutthebbc/governance/mission .

>> Our mission is "to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain".

>> The Charter also sets out our five public purposes:

>> 1. To provide impartial news and information to help people understand and engage with the world around them

>> The BBC should provide duly accurate and impartial news, current affairs and factual programming to build people’s understanding of all parts of the United Kingdom and of the wider world. Its content should be provided to the highest editorial standards. It should offer a range and depth of analysis and content not widely available from other United Kingdom news providers, using the highest calibre presenters and journalists, and championing freedom of expression, so that all audiences can engage fully with major local, regional, national, United Kingdom and global issues and participate in the democratic process, at all levels, as active and informed citizens.

>> 2. To support learning for people of all ages

>> The BBC should help everyone learn about different subjects in ways they will find accessible, engaging, inspiring and challenging. The BBC should provide specialist educational content to help support learning for children and teenagers across the United Kingdom. It should encourage people to explore new subjects and participate in new activities through partnerships with educational, sporting and cultural institutions.

>> 3. To show the most creative, highest quality and distinctive output and services

>> The BBC should provide high-quality output in many different genres and across a range of services and platforms which sets the standard in the United Kingdom and internationally. Its services should be distinctive from those provided elsewhere and should take creative risks, even if not all succeed, in order to develop fresh approaches and innovative content.

>> 4. To reflect, represent and serve the diverse communities of all of the United Kingdom’s nations and regions and, in doing so, support the creative economy across the United Kingdom

>> The BBC should reflect the diversity of the United Kingdom both in its output and services. In doing so, the BBC should accurately and authentically represent and portray the lives of the people of the United Kingdom today, and raise awareness of the different cultures and alternative viewpoints that make up its society. It should ensure that it provides output and services that meet the needs of the United Kingdom’s nations, regions and communities. The BBC should bring people together for shared experiences and help contribute to the social cohesion and wellbeing of the United Kingdom. In commissioning and delivering output the BBC should invest in the creative economies of each of the nations and contribute to their development.

>> 5. To reflect the United Kingdom, its culture and values to the world

>> The BBC should provide high-quality news coverage to international audiences, firmly based on British values of accuracy, impartiality, and fairness. Its international services should put the United Kingdom in a world context, aiding understanding of the United Kingdom as a whole, including its nations and regions where appropriate. It should ensure that it produces output and services which will be enjoyed by people in the United Kingdom and globally.

> Would it be biased if BBC ran more pieces about the sad plight of Ukrainian soldiers compared to Russian soldiers?

Yes, it would be biased in the same way that the BBC runs more pieces about Ukrainian civilians than it does about Palestinian civilians. There are likely more published BBC articles about Ukrainian civilians with photographs, audio, video, and documents than there are about Palestinian civilians.

There is BBC staff reporting from Ukraine and/or with the help of Ukrainian media affiliates and Ukrainian sources.

Where are the BBC reporters in Gaza?

In armed conflict far away from the country in question, comparatively for each side, yes, both sides' deaths getting similar coverage is how one should expect the media to operate.

If Chile and Peru get into a war tomorrow, the expectation would absolutely be that coverage of deaths by the BBC would be similar for both.

>How many people die in civil wars in Sudan or Congo, compared to how much coverage are they getting?

The obvious key difference here is that in those wars both sides of those conflicts do still tend to get similar coverage per death; which is almost none. At the very least there's not orders of magnitudes difference. Not sure how you missed this, but it doesn't inspire much confidence.

> Would it be biased if BBC ran more pieces about the sad plight of Ukrainian soldiers compared to Russian soldiers?

No, as Russia is a reasonable threat to the UK whereas Hamas is clearly not.

They might be murderous terrorists, but they were, in fact, elected in as free an election as Gaza was likely to get.

They're as much a legitimate government there as the current US administration is here.

I do not agree. Unless this applies to European Jews then? They were not all killed. Some were captured, some were used as labor or for experimentation. Some started a new state! If a sustained campaign is not successful in killing every single individual, how many before you might call it a genocide? This is a poor metric. If the borders of a country are eliminated (first politically, then practically), alongside hundreds of thousands of deaths targeted by culture/location/race, and confiscation of their property, there has been a genocide as far as most of the world is concerned. These are elements of culture and they can only be recreated or replaced or lost to time.

> Retaliating to that to get your hostages back and to stop the endless attacks on your race is not genocide.

The retaliation sped up the ongoing genocide as a pretext. Each side has wrongs they are retaliating from. The hostages are a justification to do what was already an official state goal. Complete annexation of Palestine. Imagine if any US state (or country) was slowly swallowed by a neighbor encroaching with violent and disposable settlers, the violence would be the same. This is the state of modern warfare demonstrated repeatedly over the last 200 years. Further imagining there is a moral actor, is arbitrarily picking a side.

Israel doesn't allow reporters in Gaza, and has systematically murdered the ones who were there.

However, as luck would have it, the BBC published 3 separate pieces of news about Israel/Palestine today.

1. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1mz8gxzg82o

2. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8rp31lk7mzo

3. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2k14n9d8y9o

I’ve read all three articles, and I skimmed them again quickly to verify that none of the three mention that “At least 78 Palestinians have been killed since the morning” like Al Jazeera does (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2025/7/8/live-israel...).

If the BBC is willing to publish 3 separate articles about recent developments in the Israel/Palestine conflict in the same day, then why does the BBC not also report the casualties of said conflict that happened on said day? Not even breaking news with reports of unknown casualties. Just nothing about it and no indication of anything having happened at all.

> Gaza death toll hits 95 as Khan Younis attack casualties rise

> At least 95 Palestinians have been killed as a result of Israeli attacks since dawn, hospital sources in Gaza tell Al Jazeera.

> According to Nasser Hospital in the southern part of the enclave, the death toll of the Israeli attack on the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis that we reported on earlier has increased to seven people.

then there is this tweet that is Arabic and contains a video > https://twitter.com/AJA_Palestine/status/1942671277883273250

with the following translation

> Translation: A Palestinian boy injured in an Israeli bombing asks his sister for food as he is starving while he waits to receive treatment.

My reply still stands in that BBC still has made no visible attempt to report a story with any casualty figures for Gaza this day even though they did publish 3 other pieces of news concerning the conflict. Therefore, the "relevancy bias" does not apply to the BBC here because the BBC considers the conflict relevant enough to report on 3 times within 24 hours.

Why does the BBC not consider the daily toll of casualties in this very same conflict sufficiently relevant to report on?

No "preliminary estimates on this breaking story"?

No "unconfirmed reports at this time"?

Nothing.

I didn't say anything about "not all killed". Please - all these silly distractions and fallacies permeate any attempts to discuss this. You're not talking to an avatar representing all the worst, easiest to counter arguments from the "other side". You're talking to a real person who is articulating a view.

Pasting again

> At least 95 Palestinians have been killed as a result of Israeli attacks since dawn, hospital sources in Gaza tell Al Jazeera.

> According to Nasser Hospital in the southern part of the enclave, the death toll of the Israeli attack on the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis that we reported on earlier has increased to seven people.

We will have to agree to disagree if hospital sources and the Nasser Hospital are not sufficient.

What source would be sufficient?

This approach towards determining relevancy is what I meant by “if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, then does it make a sound” earlier.

Update:

> Dr Mohammed Saqr, the director of nursing at Gaza’s Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, said he had personally witnessed countless mass casualty incidents in recent weeks.

> “The scenes are truly shocking – they resemble the horrors of judgment day. Sometimes within just half an hour we receive over 100 to 150 cases, ranging from severe injuries to deaths … About 95% of these injuries and deaths come from food distribution centres – what are referred to as the ‘American food distribution centres’,” Saqr said.

> On Wednesday, between 20 and 44 people were killed, according to officials in Gaza.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/09/gaza-aid-worke...