Ombudsman: How biased is the media’s reporting on Israel?

Is there a balance of sympathy?

Media coverage of Israel's war in Gaza is criticized by sympathizers of both warring parties.

Ignaz Staub

Published today at 09:00

What does neutral reporting on the Middle East conflict look like? Demonstration in Tel Aviv for the release of Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip (September 13).

Photo: Keystone

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On October 7th annually Israel's war in Gaza after the Hamas massacre. There is still no Release of Israeli hostages There is still no end in sight to the deadly fighting. Both sides blame each other for the disaster, and the international community remains largely passive – despite lip service to concern.

Criticism of the reporting of Tamedia titles on the war in Gaza remains. The accusation: imbalance and bias. One reader calls the publisher's papers “left-wing and brown”, while another criticizes the TA article about an Israeli soldier critical of the army, saying that careless reporting “opens the door to hatred, false statements and incitement”. and sown».

Online comment sections are also being targeted, as they are said to publish anti-Semitic comments and censor pro-Israel reactions.

Israeli lawyer criticizes BBC

But criticism is rarely as massive as in the case of a 387-page report by Israel-based lawyer Trevor Asserson. He accuses the BBC of violating its editorial guidelines no fewer than 1,553 times between October 7, 2023, and February 7, 2024. The report was co-authored by around 20 lawyers and 20 data scientists who used artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze nine million words broadcast on the BBC's various channels.

The report's “analysis of human sympathy” shows a “deeply disturbing pattern of bias” against Israel. The evidence: The BBC has repeatedly failed to label Hamas a “terrorist organization,” to mention the lack of press freedom in Gaza, to fairly assess the allegations of war crimes by both sides, and to remind people of the existential threat to Israel.

The BBC contradicts this. According to its spokesperson, the broadcaster has serious doubts about the methodology of the report, which relies on supposedly impartial AI to determine balance and question guidelines: “We do not believe that reporting can be classified by simply counting words without reference to context.” The BBC strives for true impartiality and not for a “balance of sympathy”.

CMM comes to the opposite conclusion

What is not mentioned is that the British Center for Media Monitoring (CMM), which monitors media reports on Muslims and Islam, came to opposite conclusions to the Asserson report in an analysis published in March. CMM concluded that Palestinian perspectives were repeatedly misrepresented and that there was “systematic bias” against Palestinians in traditional media.

In 2006, following external criticism, the BBC concluded internally that its failure to adequately reflect the disparity of the Israeli and Palestinian experiences reflected the fact that one side is in power and the other lives under occupation: “Although this asymmetry does not necessarily say anything about the legitimate claims of either side, it is so pronounced and important that reporting should at least demonstrate it.”

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