Located under “Action Items” on the CAMERA home page is a new feature focusing on two leading news organizations, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and The Washington Post.
BBC-Watch will help expose the severe anti-Israel bias in BBC news coverage. One of the largest news organizations in the world, BBC disseminates information in more than 40 languages via radio, television, and the Internet. Much of what it purveys on Israel and the Middle East sharply misrepresents current as well as historical events.
The new feature also aims to promote public challenges to the misinformation, inaccuracy, and partisanship that taints network reporting in the case of the BBC, and a tendency of The Washington Post to view news as what Israelis do to Palestinian Arabs, not what Arabs do to Israelis.
Regular Web postings will address single instances of misinformation — for example, false assertions about history on the BBC Web site — as well as lengthier issues on World Service radio broadcasts. BBC World Service is distributed in the United States by Public Radio International (PRI). BBC World News is aired by many Public Broadcasting System television stations.
Additional CAMERA information about BBC coverage can be found at the BBC listings under Media Outlets.
CAMERA’s new in-house BBC-Watch should not be confused with the excellent British site www.bbcwatch.com, produced by Trevor Asserson and Lee Kern that monitors television and radio in the United Kingdom as well as Middle east coverage on the BBC Website. Visitors to the CAMERA site are encouraged to visit the UK site for in-depth analyses of the BBC by Asserson and Kern.
CAMERA’s Washington Post-Watch feature also will help spark quick reader responses to Post coverage. The Washington Post is one of America’s leading daily newspapers and required reading for members of Congress and their staffs, the executive branch, diplomats, and opinion leaders in the news media and think tanks.
While often detailed and substantive, thePost’s Middle East reporting — particularly of Arab-Israeli stories — frequently gives the benefit of the doubt to Arab charges while withholding it from Israeli claims. Palestinian Arab grievances often are highlighted, Palestinian responsibility for those grievances often ignored while Arab aggression against Israel frequently is minimized if not ignored, and well-founded Israeli positions given scant attention.
Washington Post-Watch and BBC-Watch will not replace CAMERA Alerts to our e-mail letter writing teams or analyses like those published in CAMERA Media Report or elsewhere on the Web site, but will promote even more rapid response to shortcomings in daily coverage.
Visitors to the CAMERA Web site also are encouraged to report their own concerns about BBC or Washington Post coverage via “Contact CAMERA” on the main menu.