Our latest analysis of news bulletins reveals how Israel continues to spin images of war (2011)

Greg Philo

Israeli-Palestinian conflict has reached a new level of intensity. In 2004 the Glasgow University Media Group published a major study on TV coverage of the Second Intifada and its impact on public understanding. We analysed about 200 programmes and questioned more than 800 people. Our conclusion: reporting was dominated by Israeli accounts. Since then we have been contacted by many journalists, especially from the BBC, and told of the intense pressures they are under that limit criticism of Israel. They asked us to raise the issue in public because they can't. They speak of "waiting in fear for the phone call from the Israelis" (meaning the embassy or higher), of the BBC's Jerusalem bureau having been "leant on by the Americans", of being "guilty of self-censorship" and of "urgently needing an external arbiter". Yet the public response of the BBC is to avoid reporting our latest findings. Those in control have the power to say what is not going to be the news.

My comment:
Needless to say, this is precisely what is going on right now with the BBC's coverage of the genocide in Gaza. The reason for posting this again, from an earlier post, is all down to the stomach-churningly BBC promos fronted by Clive Myrie, John Simpson and Laura Kuennsberg in which they piously profess to be "fair" and "honest" and "truthful" in their news reporting, when the real truth is that they are shills for Israel and the corporate feeding trough. Simpson loftily explains that BBC news has no spin, which is why they call their dispatches "Unspun World".

I just wish more BBC "journalists" would speak out about the self-censorship and editorial pressures they are under, but then they'd lose their well-paid jobs and expense accounts and forfeit any future prospects in the corporate media and loss of reputation. What miserable lives they must lead, forever in denial, the poor twats.