Perfidious BiBiC...my complaint from 18th March....no reply but...
Posted by Ed on April 6, 2025, 1:45 pm
Going on 3 weeks now since I made my very simple and straightforward complaint (posted below) despite them telling me:
"We aim to respond within 2 weeks, this isn't always possible due to various factors, such as the nature of your complaint or delays in hearing back from key individuals who may be involved in programme making."
Anyway, I had the bright idea of checking out the offending article again and lo and behold, the part I complained about had been changed with a slight omission and reediting of the original lie. I received no notification of this or notification on the actual piece, despite finding this from the BBC...it would appear that patently false statements that support Israel are "small errors":
"If an article has been edited since publication to correct a material inaccuracy, a note will be added at the end of the text to signal to the reader there has been an amendment or correction with the date of that change. If there is a small error in a story that does not alter its editorial meaning (eg name misspelling), the correction will be made without an additional note." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/help-41670342
Original complaint/question:
Inexcusable false information concerning Oct 7th
In the piece "Israel launches 'extensive strikes' on Gaza with at least 220 reportedly killed", written by Rushdi Abualouf and George Wright on 18th March, 2025, they state:
"The latest war between Israel and Hamas started on 7 October 2023, when Hamas killed more than 1,200 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, with 251 taken hostage."
This is patently false as many news outlets, including Israeli news sources and the Israeli military itself, have confirmed. In fact, many Israelis were killed by the implementation of The Hannibal Directive that day which is the controversial military protocol that permits the use of indiscriminate firepower, even against Israel’s own civilians, in an effort to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers.
The Jerusalem Post for instance: "On October 7, the Israeli air force fired on anything that was moving along the border. Israeli forces carried out approximately 945 airstrikes and fired 11,000 times from helicopters, resulting in heavy casualties." Or Haaretz: They reported that the military knew that Israeli civilians had been taken hostage, but, nonetheless, at 11:22 a.m. the order came down from IDF command: “Not a single vehicle can return to Gaza.” The report concludes: “[The 11:22 a.m. message] was understood by everyone. . . At this point, the IDF was not aware of the extent of kidnapping along the Gaza border, but it did know that many people were involved. Thus, it was entirely clear what the message meant, and what the fate of some of the kidnapped people would be.”
Even former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant confirmed it had been used.
So, a simple question more than a complaint: why are BBC journalists still peddling something that is patently false? Two possibilities occur to me...they are intentionally deceiving us or they are ignorant of the facts. Whichever one it is, they should not be writing for public consumption.
Original: "The latest war between Israel and Hamas started on 7 October 2023, when Hamas killed more than 1,200 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, with 251 taken hostage."
Re-edited version: "The war between Israel and Hamas was triggered by Hamas's attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people - mostly civilians - were killed, and 251 others taken hostage."
The re-edited version is still misleading as it implies it was all Hamas who did the killing but I suppose it just about coverers their smelly arse.
I'm waiting for their mealy-mouthed version of how the IDF fired on the convoy, shot the medics, bulldozed the ambulances flat and pushed them all into a mass grave. Something like: "The ambulances damaged in the incident were an eyesore and a potential traffic hazard, so it was decided to make the area safe by disposing of them. As the medical staff would no longer have anything to drive, and therefore redundant, they were treated in a similar fashion."
I do wonder, and not for the first time, how the average run-of-the-mill news hack at the BBC can face going into work each day. These are not stupid, ignorant people. Do they sit in the bar after work, do you suppose, and speak honestly to one another about how they feel? I'm struggling to imagine their reaction to what they're doing (and not doing).
Re: Well done for following up, Ed. The BBC really are the pits
I have wondered that myself Scrabb, on so many ocassions...do any of these hacks wake up in the middle of the night and think for example, how those 15 medics were executed, how one of the victims can be heard saying his dying prayers, how they were then thrown into a mass grave, how the IDF lied about how their vehicles were acting suspiciously and had no emergency lights on etc etc etc and then think of how they turned their backs on the murdered victims and sided with the murderers as they excuse it all by rabbiting the same old IDF lies that is was all "a mistake". I wonder how they feel, in their heart of hearts.
Re: Well done for following up, Ed. The BBC really are the pits
We know that a bunch of them are very unhappy to have reports whitewashed by Raffi Berg, who has fan pics of Netanyahu and Regev on his office wall, from Owen Jones' long and pretty groundbreaking report last December - Civil War .... I'd like to see a follow-up and a tv doc / movie made from it.
But it seems bizarre there isn't much more irreverence; the power of having one's career resting on playing ball I suppose.
Re: Well done for following up, Ed. The BBC really are the pits
on April 6, 2025, 1:45 pm