Further to yesterday's post on BBC Verify and biased reporting from Gaza, here's David Collier's latest – BBC Verify – a hostile land of make believe – part one.
On that story of the Gaza hospital staff supposedly abused by the IDF:
On Tuesday 12 March, BBC News / BBC Verify published an exclusive story that accused Israel of abusing Gazan medical staff. Because demonisation of Israel acts as a fix to a nation experiencing an addiction to antisemitism, the item was widely shared. In the end even the British Foreign Minister David Cameron felt the need to respond, calling the report ‘very disturbing’. The BBC played its part by holding the item on the front page far longer than usual.
But when you break the BBC exclusive down, cracks emerge in the story. In fact the entire piece relies on human input from just six separate sources. Three of them were Arabic speaking journalists – the other three were witnesses from the hospital.
All six, from their social media history, appear to be activists celebrating Hamas and sharing material that glorifies terrorism.
Six sources – and all of them are problematic. Between the six sources listed above they could contrive anything – and BBC Verify would swallow it whole. Which is exactly how the BBC ends up acting as a Hamas propaganda outlet.
Mick Hartley 
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