BBC News omissions in coverage of Gaza UN worker conscripted by Hamas - by Hadar Sela

...As regular readers know, the BBC has in the past frequently and enthusiastically promoted UN politicised messaging on the topic of reconstruction in the Gaza Strip while concurrently ignoring the flaws in the UN’s system. Obviously it is high time for the BBC to meet its public purpose remit by finally providing audiences with some in-depth and objective coverage of the various UN agencies (and additional humanitarian organisations) working in the Gaza Strip.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
11 August '16..

“Confusion over the role of the press explains one of the strangest aspects of coverage here—namely, that while international organizations are among the most powerful actors in the Israel story, they are almost never reported on. Are they bloated, ineffective, or corrupt? Are they helping, or hurting? We don’t know, because these groups are to be quoted, not covered.” [Matti Friedman, “What the Media Gets Wrong About Israel“, November 2014]

August 9th saw the appearance of an article titled “Israel: ‘Gaza UN worker helped Hamas’” on the BBC News website’s Middle East page. The article opened:

“Israel has charged a UN aid worker from Gaza with using his position to help the militant Hamas movement, in the second such case in a week.”

When the BBC reported on that previous case, it took seven paragraphs before audiences were provided with the obviously very relevant information that Hamas is a proscribed terror organisation. In this article, readers have to plough through its entire seventeen paragraphs before they are informed that:

“Hamas is designated a terrorist group by Israel, the US, EU, and UK among other countries.”

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