So Trump suddenly threatens to sue the BBC for $1 billion for a misleading splice-up of video clips broadcast over a year ago. A BBC news editor — Raffi Berg — is suing journalist Owen Jones for exposing his biased judgement in reporting Gaza war news. And two top knobs at the BBC, Director-General Tim Davie and CEO of news Deborah Turness, jump before they’re pushed.
The British public are angry enough at having to pay the BBC’s extortionate TV licence fee only to have biased news beamed at them. If Trump were to win his $1 billion claim he’d be paid off with licence payers’ money which would infuriate the public even more.
If Berg were to proceed against Jones it would open a whole new can of worms and magnify what’s already known about pro-Israel bias inside the state broadcaster.
And the departure of the two top post-holders from the BBC leaves too many iffy editors still in place and the bias problem still unresolved.
Mismanaging news standards
When, in November 2023, BBC senior management attended a meeting with at least 100 staffers to discuss coverage of Gaza, Deborah Turness called out, in an attempt to assert control of the meeting: “We’ve got to all remember that this all started on 7 October.” Erasing the decades of Israeli occupation before October 7 was a stunning example of how distorted the mindset of those at the top can be.
As for Berg, Mint Press points to his former employment with the US State Department’s Foreign Broadcast Information Service, a unit widely regarded as a CIA front.
BBC journalists also claimed Davie and Turness stood in the way of change. Both were aware of concerns about Berg but ignored them.
And according to Owen, at a ‘listening session’ meeting between staffers and Tim Davie “they noted Berg’s history and associations as indicative of bias, pointing to instances where journalists’ copy had been changed prior to publication. They made specific requests: that stories should, as a rule, emphasize that Israel had not granted the BBC access to Gaza, that the network should end the practice of presenting the official Israeli versions of events as fact, and that the BBC should do more to offer context about Israeli occupation and the fact that Gaza is overwhelmingly populated by descendants of refugees forcibly driven from their homes beginning in 1948. While Davie told staff that management would ‘look into’ staff objections, to date no response ever came back.”
In response to a request for comment, the BBC said it unequivocally stood by Berg’s work and asserted that the BBC was “the world’s most trusted international news source” and its “coverage should be judged on its own merits and in its entirety. If we make mistakes we correct them.”
But complaints have continued, for example the use of emotional words like ‘massacre’ and ‘atrocities’ to describe Hamas’s attacks but not in reference to the slaughter perpetrated by Israeli forces. A failure to provide historical context, crucial omissions, and a lack of critical engagement with Israel’s claims, were also mentioned.
Staffers acknowledged the pressure the BBC faces from pro-Israel lobbyists and emphasize that their sole objective was to uphold the BBC’s values of fairness and impartiality and to produce content “without fear or favour” — principles they felt had been cast aside in deference to Israeli narratives. The website, headed by Raffi Berg, was considered the BBC’s worst violator of editorial standards. They also raised concerns about Robbie Gibb, one of five people who serve on the BBC’s editorial guidelines and standards committee along with Davie, Turness, the Chairman of the Arts Council Nicholas Serota, and BBC Chair Samir Shah.
Gibb is responsible for helping to define the BBC’s commitment to impartiality and respond to complaints about the BBC’s coverage on Israel and Palestine. But between 2017 and 2019 he’d served as director of communications for Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May, and in 2020 he led a consortium to rescue the Jewish Chronicle from bankruptcy. He then joined the BBC board as a non-executive director while continuing his involvement with the Jewish Chronicle, saying in his Declaration of Personal Interests that he was the 100% owner of that newspaper until a venture capitalist took over in August 2024. According the Companies House Gibb was sole director of Jewish Chronicle Media from April 2020 to August 2024 and was succeeded by Ian Austin (Lord Austin of Derby) and Jonathan Kandel. The Jewish Chronicle Ltd was dissolved in February 2023. Gibb’s links to the Jewish Chronicle and its slavish pro-Israel stance were widely known, so it’s puzzling how he could ever have been thought sufficiently impartial for a key position managing the BBC’s editorial standards.
Openness and transparency are not BBC strong points either. Back in March campaigner Deborah Mallender, in a Freedom of Information request, asked the BBC:
(1) Is it true that your Chief of your Middle East desk Raffi Berg has collaborated with Mossad and worked for the CIA as per this widely distributed media report?
(2) How does that affect your claim of impartiality, unspun news and claims of upholding the integrity of professional journalism?
(3) Have you received any complaints from your own journalists about this employee?
(4) Have you received any communication from any politician about this appointment nationally or internationally? How many? Who communicated?
(5) Have you received any complaints from members of the public about this? How many?
The BBC’s reply?
“In response to parts 1 and 2 of your request, please be advised that we do not consider this to constitute a valid request under the FOI Act. The Act gives a general right of access to information that we hold in our records, e.g. in writing. We are not required to create new information to respond to a request, or to give a judgement, opinion or comment that is not already recorded. In response to parts 3, 4 and 5 of your request, please be advised that section 12 of the FOI Act states the BBC to does not have to deal with a request where it estimates that it would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ (defined in the Fees Regulations) to comply with the request.”
Meanwhile, Trump has received an apology from the BBC for its “error of judgement”, and that should be enough. It is surely beneath any normal US president to pursue the broadcasting arm of an allied power for such a preposterous sum, though not in Trump’s case. Nor should the BBC even consider stroking this conceited man’s bloated ego and forking out one penny of British public’s licence fee money. On the other hand I would gladly pay that fee if the BBC were to force Trump to bring his action in the UK High Court. My understanding is that it must be done within 1 year and Trump is out of time. Case dismissed.
The post BBC on the Rack first appeared on Dissident Voice.
This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Stuart Littlewood.