On the afternoon of March 29 the BBC News website published a filmed report by Hugo Bachega titled “Hundreds in Beirut mourn journalists killed in Israeli strike.” The synopsis to that report tells BBC audiences that: [emphasis added]
The BBC’s Middle East correspondent Hugo Bachega reports from the funerals of three journalists killed by a targeted attack by Israel in southern Lebanon on Saturday 28 March.
Ali Shoeib, a reporter for the Hezbollah-affiliated Al Manar TV station, was killed in the town of Jezzine alongside reporter Fatima Ftouni and her brother, cameraman Mohamed Ftouni, both from the channel Al Mayadeen, according to the stations.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed it had killed Shoeib, describing him as a “terrorist”, but provided no evidence to support the claim that he played a military role in the organisation. The Israeli military has not offered any comment on the killings of Fatima and Mahamed Ftoni.
The link promoted at the end of that synopsis takes BBC audiences to a written report published the previous day which was discussed here. As in that written report, the synopsis describes Al Manar as “Hezbollah-affiliated” rather than owned by that terrorist organization (and US-designated and banned in Germany) as is actually the case. Similarly, audiences are once again not told that Al Mayadeen is affiliated with Hezbollah. Those omissions are all the more notable given that in the filmed report itself, Bachega is able to inform viewers that [emphasis added]:
Ali Shoeib was a well-known journalist for Al Manar, which is the television station owned by Hezbollah.
With a Hezbollah scarf already visible in the first frame, Bachega tells BBC audiences that: [emphasis in italics in the original]
Bachega: “The three Lebanese journalists who were killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon are now being laid to rest in this emotional ceremony here in the southern suburbs of Beirut. A lot of people have come here, despite the heavy rain, to pay their final respects. There’s been a lot of commotion, a lot of anger in this country; criticism and condemnation of Israel over the attack. The Lebanese president Joseph Aoun has condemned this attack as a blatant crime, saying that it was in breach of international law by targeting reporters.”
Avoiding the obvious question of why the country that Aoun represents allows a designated terrorist organization to run a television channel, a radio station, newspapers, and numerous websites – and against a backdrop of footage of Hezbollah flags and posters – Bachega continues:
Bachega: “Ali Shoeib was a well-known journalist for Al Manar, which is the television station owned by Hezbollah. And the Israeli military said he was an intelligence operative for Hezbollah, even though it hasn’t provided any evidence to support the claim that he had a military role within the organization. Fatima Ftouni and her brother – cameraman Mohammad Fatouni – both worked for the Al Mayadeen television channel.”
As was noted previously in relation to the BBC’s written report on the story:
Shoeib’s threats against Eitan Davidi were reported at the time and his practice of informing Hezbollah of the locations of IDF troops has also long been documented. Shoeib’s name has appeared in court cases in Israel relating to the transfer of information to Hezbollah. Had the BBC journalists looked, they might also have found the photographs of Shoeib with figures such as Qassem Soleimani and a Radwan Force commander.
A report on Shoeib’s activities published by the Alma Center includes the following:
Ali Shoeib was not a regular journalist. He was an important “mouthpiece” in the service of Hezbollah’s cognitive apparatus, inciting against IDF forces and Israeli civilians and significantly influencing Hezbollah’s propaganda system. On his Twitter page, he directly published announcements and documentation of Hezbollah terrorist operations against Israeli civilians.
Moreover, Ali Shoeib served for many years as a Hezbollah facilitator, mainly in the intelligence field. In 2020, Shoeib was formally recruited as an operative in Hezbollah’s military wing. However, Shoeib had been collecting intelligence in the border area for many years even prior to his formal recruitment. He also served as a contact point for individuals interested in cooperating with Hezbollah against Israel. […]
Within the framework of the 2023–2024 war, the ceasefire, and the renewal of the current campaign (March 2026), Shoeib continued to be of intelligence value while maintaining his access to southern Lebanon and the contact line. Ali Shoeib continued to provide Hezbollah with visual intelligence, exposed the locations of IDF soldiers in southern Lebanon and along the border, maintaining continuous contact with Hezbollah forces fighting on the ground.
The Long War Journal reports that:
After Shuaib’s death, Hezbollah’s media ecosystem implicitly acknowledged his function in supporting the “resistance” through media activity. Al Nour Radio, another LMG subsidiary, said that Shuaib was “the first to know of the resistance fighters’ victories, his voice had the impact of bullets in the battle. … He was no ordinary correspondent.” Hezbollah’s official Al Ahed newspaper likewise said, “Resistance media martyr Ali Shuaib did not merely report the news. He was also a partner in creating victory.”
As viewers see a poster of a kneeling journalist which they are not told reads “You delivered your message, so rest in peace beside Nasrallah,” Bachega goes on:
Bachega: “The Committee to Protect Journalists has issued a strong statement saying that this fits a decades-old pattern by the Israeli military of accusing journalists of being militarily involved in these organizations, in these armed groups.”
Bachega of course does not inform his viewers that the CPJ still has casualties listed as journalists even after terrorist organizations have acknowledged that they were combatants. He continues with promotion of the “same as Gaza” narrative also found in the BBC’s written report.
Bachega: “And we’ve seen this in Gaza and we’re seeing this in Lebanon and human rights groups say they have documented cases in which they believe journalists have been deliberately targeted by the Israeli military. And they say these cases could amount to possible war crimes.”
Bachega does not bother to provide his viewers with the names of those “human rights groups” in order to enable them to make their own judgments regarding the reliability of the unproven speculations and accusations that he chooses to amplify worldwide.
Clearly the aim of Bachega’s reporting (from a location in the Hezbollah stronghold Dahiyeh neighborhood where Hezbollah combatants are buried) on the topic of funerals at which chants of “death to America” and “death to Israel” were heard while the terrorist organization’s flags were flown and placards waved was not to provide BBC audiences with the full range of information concerning the Hezbollah operative who was the target of the strike.
Rather, he and some of his colleagues – including from other Western media outlets – seek to establish a narrative that supports their long-standing wider chosen framing of Israel’s responses to attacks by terrorists, while sidelining the issue of the abuse of their own profession by groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah and legitimizing the media arms of terrorist organizations.
This post originally appeared at CAMERA UK.