An insider raises concerns to Byline Times of the corporation’s ‘really extraordinary’ acquiescence to Israeli ‘propaganda’ – and a new report suggests its double-standards in the reporting of Palestinian suffering amounts to institutional bias. Iain Overton reports

Few institutions are as embedded in the British psyche as the BBC. With its global reach and reputation for impartiality, it occupies a central place in the UK’s information ecosystem. But a report by the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), a Muslim Council of Britain project, published in June, has challenged that image.

Examining the BBC’s output on the Israel-Gaza conflict from October 2023 to October 2024, the CfMM claims that the broadcaster has failed in its duty of “due impartiality”. Instead, its report – ‘BBC On Gaza-Israel: One Story, Double Standards’ – argues that the UK’s national broadcaster has diminished Palestinian suffering, amplified Israeli perspectives, and applied double-standards to reporting on the war that amounts to institutional bias.

The CfMM analysed 3,873 online articles and 32,092 broadcast segments to identify what it called “the marginalisation of Palestinian suffering and the amplification of Israeli narratives”. Central to its claim is that, despite Palestinian fatalities outnumbering Israeli ones by more than 34 to one, coverage of Israeli deaths has dominated.

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