Youth-led pro-Palestinian direct action group Youth Demand has occupied the lobby of BBC Manchester. They’re fighting back against the BBC’s failure to report adequately on Israel’s perpetuation of the genocide of Palestinians.
The protesters posted the announcement on their social media on the morning of Monday 8 September. The statement in the posts was stark:
!! BBC MANCHESTER OCCUPIED
This morning, Youth Demand supporters occupied the lobby of the BBC office in Manchester. Others stood outside with banners chanting.
The BBC is complicit in genocide. Palestinians are being starved and murdered, while the BBC fail to report on Israel’s war crimes.
In the accompanying photograph, apparently taken through the glass front of the lobby, three young people sit before the front desk amid Palestinian flags and keffiyeh scarves. Behind them, two more individuals hold up a banner reading “Stop arming Israel”.
BBC complicity exposed by Youth Demand
Youth Demand are far from alone in their assertion that the BBC has a strong pro-Israel bias.
In November of last year, 256 journalism industry professionals signed an open letter condemning mainstream media coverage of the war in Gaza. In particular, the letter singled out the BBC for its receipt of license-fee funding when “the erosion of its own editorial standards” is risking its impartiality and independence.
Over 100 anonymous BBC staff signed the letter. It highlighted the ways in which organisations like the BBC demonstrated their complicity, both overtly and more subtly:
Basic journalistic tenets have been lacking when it comes to holding Israel to account for its actions. We, as a group of largely industry professionals, want to see the best possible journalism coming out of the region and ask these broadcasters for accuracy across the board, including but not limited to: reiterating that Israel does not give external journalists access to Gaza, making it clear when there is insufficient evidence to back up Israeli claims, highlighting the extent to which Israeli sources are reliable, making clear where Israel is the perpetrator in article headlines, providing proportionate representation of experts in war crimes and crimes against humanity, including regular historical context predating October 2023, use of consistent language when discussing both Israeli and Palestinian deaths, and robustly challenging Israeli government and military representatives in all interviews. Many of us have raised concerns across organisations via the appropriate channels, to no avail.
Gaza: Doctors Under Attack
However, despite these complaints from both within and outside of the BBC highlighting its bias, the broadcaster has if anything doubled down since then. The criticisms were renewed when it scrapped plans to air the documentary Gaza: Doctors Under Attack. The publicly funded corporation claimed that broadcasting the documentary “risked creating a perception of partiality”.
The BBC claimed that it had been working with documentary makers Basement Films to find a way to air parts of the footage without showing the whole piece. However, after the axing, the BBC stated that:
Yesterday it became apparent that we have reached the end of the road with these discussions. We have come to the conclusion that broadcasting this material risked creating a perception of partiality that would not meet the high standards that the public rightly expect of the BBC. Impartiality is a core principle of BBC News. It is one of the reasons that we are the world’s most trusted broadcaster.
Ben de Pear, founder of Basement Films, claimed that BBC journalists were being “stymied and silenced”. He laid the blame squarely at the feet of Tim Davie, director general of the broadcasting corporation:
All the decisions about our film were not taken by journalists; they were taken by Tim Davie… Tim Davie is taking editorial decisions which, frankly, he is not capable of making.
The BBC’s primary purpose is TV news and current affairs, and if it’s failing on that, it doesn’t matter what drama it makes or sports it covers. It is failing as an institution. And if it’s failing on that, then it needs new management.
Silence from the BBC
As of the time of writing for this article, the BBC has made no mention of Youth Demand’s occupation of their Manchester headquarters. That includes both their online news stream and their regional social media profiles.
You’ve really got to ask: if the BBC can’t be trusted to report on the pro-Palestinian protests happening in their own lobby, how can we possibly trust their reporting on the situation in Gaza itself?
Featured image supplied
