Why the BBC whispers on Iran but shouts on Gaza
As Iran erupts under brutal repression, the BBC’s muted coverage exposes a stark and troubling editorial imbalance
If further proof of bias at the BBC is needed, we only have to turn to its coverage of Iran and compare it with its coverage of Gaza.
Its coverage of Gaza was indisputably loud, while its coverage of Iran, where, over the past few weeks, tumultuous protests and violent repression by a despotic, undemocratic, fundamentalist Islamist theocracy appear to be leading towards regime change, is far quieter (some would say almost inaudible.)
For instance, as of today, 6 January, the BBC’s chief Middle East correspondent, Jeremy Bowen, who would normally dash to the hottest Middle East hotspot at the drop of a kepi, was not in Tehran — nor anywhere in Iran. According to Google, his “professional activities are focused elsewhere.” He’s on a ten-day trip to Syria, apparently, as part of the BBC’s coverage of the one-year anniversary of the fall of the Assad regime, which I feel sure will offer opportunities to impugn Israel over its “aggression” while entirely ignoring the threat from the Iranian proxies in the region.
Orla Guerin, the BBC’s ‘Senior International Correspondent’, who has also covered the Middle East extensively and who would also be dispatched swiftly to a developing story, is also not believed to be in Iran currently, despite “travelling widely for assignments” and being based in Turkey, which has a border with Iran.
To borrow from the BBC’s beloved cooking shows, its coverage of Iran has been kept on the down-low, at a low simmer, while “Gaza” was kept on high heat and at a fast boil thanks to daily, hourly – seemingly often minute-by-minute – “stories” from Gaza which the BBC couldn’t wait to pass on to its viewers and listeners. Alongside the enthusiastic dissemination of Hamas “press bulletins”, invariably treated as “news”, there were fake Hamas-generated statistics and fake Hamas-generated photos and videos; there were all the claims of Israel “starving” the population and of Israel destroying buildings that it did not and, of course, those “special reports” from hostile organisations, including the UN, or “findings” from NGOs or individuals known to be hostile to Israel, and the unverified “eye-witness accounts” of alleged Israeli infractions.
Perhaps this low-level coverage of Iran is due to the fact that the Iranian regime does not allow Western reporters. But if that is the case, why haven’t we heard the BBC newsreaders say so, since they were, after all, unhesitatingly willing to imply Israel’s guilt on an almost nightly basis during the Gaza war by intoning that deathless phrase that “Israel does not allow reporters into Gaza”- with no explanation or context, which might explain or mitigate or disrupt a narrative?
And if the reason that there are no “trusted reporters” to report on events in Iran similar to those the BBC found, or were handed by Hamas in Gaza, could that be because in this conflict, the reports do not perpetuate the pro-regime narrative the BBC seems somehow to have adopted and are therefore not used?
- Jan Shure is a writer, editor and blogger
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