While international output covered both sides of hearings equally, UK broadcast had disparity in live coverage, says editorial policy chief
Grilled by British lawmakers, the BBC’s editorial policy chief said Monday that the broadcaster may have “made a mistake” by its unequal coverage of proceedings in the genocide case Israel is facing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) .
In a session with legislators on Parliament’s Media Committee, the BBC’s Director of Editorial Policy and Standards David Jordan addressed concerns over the broadcaster’s decision to air the entire Israeli defense in the Hague, while only showing portions of South Africa’s counter-arguments.
Julie Elliott, a member of Parliament of the opposition Labour party, raised the issue, questioning the fairness and impartiality of the coverage, particularly highlighting the discrepancy in airtime between the two sides.
When pressed by Elliott, Jordan acknowledged that the coverage on the BBC’s UK output did not offer absolute equivalence between the presentations made to the ICJ.
He pointed out that while the international output covered both sides of the conflict equally, the UK broadcast had a disparity in its live coverage during those two days.
“When they looked at it, when news looked at it in retrospect, they did think that perhaps they made a mistake in not making the two live coverage events similar or the same,” he said.
“It was genuinely a difficult editorial decision about which hearing they went with,” Jordan explained, further noting that the news team recognized the need for potential adjustments, stating, “News have said that if they thought about it again, they might have done it differently.”
Israel is accused of genocide at the ICJ. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.
Tel Aviv has waged a deadly military offensive on the Palestinian territory since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas in which some 1,200 Israelis were killed.
More than 32,333 Palestinians have since been killed and over 74,694 injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.
The Israeli war, now in its 171st day, has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
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