‘The BBC’s Language Around Local Palestinian Journalists Reveals Its Egregious Double-Standard’

Usually reporters close to a story and source are celebrated for their insight – in Gaza, it is framed as ‘bias’, argues former BBC journalist Karishma Patel

In August, a presenter on the BBC News channel asked their guest: “Obviously international organisations like the BBC cannot go in [to Gaza] … so Al Jazeera is using local people there. Are they able to operate truly independently?”

The interview purported to discuss the death of 28-year-old Palestinian journalist Anas al-Sharif, who was killed with the rest of Al Jazeera’s Gaza City team in a targeted Israeli attack on their media tent on 10 August.

The words ‘local’ and ‘independently’ were doing a lot of heavy lifting in the presenter’s question.