When War Reporting Becomes Its Own Battlefield
A new report claims that BBC reporting on the Gaza war is biased against Israel, but journalism experts say that publishing accurate, impartial information in the fog of war is no easy feat
As the conflict in the Middle East continues to expand, a parallel battle of narratives is unfolding in the media. Israeli watchdog organizations have accused the international press of favoring the Palestinian side, but various international reports suggest a different story.
The Media Line spoke with Israeli, British, and American experts on media ethics on the complicated dynamics of war reporting. Multiple experts highlighted the challenges of accessing information during wartime.
“A journalist covering a war zone is often very limited in how far they can go in terms of their personal safety,” Philip Seib, professor emeritus at the University of Southern California and author of several books on wartime reporting, told The Media Line.
A journalist covering a war zone is often very limited in how far they can go in terms of their personal safety
The Israeli military has heavily restricted access for reporters wanting to enter Gaza, Seib said. “Reporters have to adjust to these limitations, and the danger, of course, is you start relying on information about incidents you haven’t seen firsthand,” he said. “You have to depend on sources that can vary in accuracy.”
Seib described the dynamic between the Israeli military and the media as “very complicated.” Commanders are focused on completing missions while minimizing risks to their troops, and sharing too much information can increase those risks, he said. “If I were an IDF commander, press access would likely be low on my list of priorities,” he noted.
Given that dynamic, many international outlets are forced to rely on information from Palestinian sources. This information is often influenced or controlled by Hamas.
Simon Plosker, editorial director of the Jerusalem-based nonprofit media watchdog group HonestReporting, stated that Hamas’ involvement in information dissemination is “a serious problem.” He noted that the organization has been working to expose biases among journalists operating in Gaza. Plosker explained that they have found instances where some reporters crossed the border on October 7, becoming involved in the story they were covering, while others who share information hold viewpoints that should disqualify them from reporting on the conflict.
The watchdog group also disclosed that certain journalists working for international media outlets in Gaza have ties to Hamas, either directly or indirectly. For example, some participated in Hamas’ “Day of Loyalty to the Palestinian Journalist,” an event organized by Hamas’ government media office to align the media with its agenda.
According to the watchdog group, a staff photographer for the Associated Press in Gaza also taught media training courses overseen by Hamas’ Information Ministry. One prominent example of this conflict of interest is the story of Abdallah Aljamal, a news contributor and former spokesperson for the Hamas-run Ministry of Labor. Aljamal was killed by Israeli forces in June during a rescue operation at his home in Nuseirat, where three Israelis were held hostage.
Misinformation associated with extremist groups can spread rapidly. A notable example is the October 2023 incident at Gaza’s Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, where a Palestinian Islamic Jihad missile misfired and exploded in the parking lot, killing around 100 people. Within minutes, Hamas falsely blamed Israel for the strike, claiming over 500 casualties and insisting the missile had hit the hospital itself. Although Israel was later cleared of responsibility, the initial false accusations spread quickly.
Last November, the BBC was forced to apologize after accusing the Israeli military of targeting Arabic speakers and medical teams at Shifa Hospital in Gaza.
The unreliable nature of sources associated with Hamas is especially challenging when it comes to casualty numbers. Many Western and Arabic-language media outlets have published uncontextualized Hamas casualty figures.
“You cannot count on a source affiliated with a terrorist organization,” Tsuriel Rashi, an ethics expert at Ariel University’s School of Communications, told The Media Line. “A terror organization is not going to tell you the truth. The Ministry of Health in Gaza is a branch of Hamas, so when it says 10,000 or 50,000 died, it needs to be called into question.”
Last month, Jerusalem-based British lawyer Trevor Asserson published a report accusing the BBC of anti-Israel bias in its coverage of the Gaza war. The report noted signs of inaccuracy in Hamas’ death toll, such as the ratios of men, women, and children killed remaining consistent. Other investigative groups and individuals uncovered discrepancies like individuals dying multiple times, fake ID numbers, and combatants being listed as civilians.
“The BBC made these numbers central to their reporting,” Asserson told The Media Line. “They know the figures they are promoting are lies.”
Asserson decided to investigate the BBC’s coverage due to a sense that reporting was being done “very badly.” After months of investigation, he found that the news organization had violated its own code of ethical conduct at least 1,500 times.
“I knew the only way I could do this was by recording what the reporters said over a long period and then analyzing it, as I wasn’t sure if I was being overly sensitive or if I was right,” Asserson said. “I asked someone to create a program to record all the main news coverage, and I did that for four months. I had 9 million words.”
As a litigation lawyer, Asserson applied traditional litigation techniques to produce around 75% of the report. He collaborated with Israeli data scientists for the rest of the media analysis. Both methodologies yielded nearly identical results, suggesting that the BBC breached its duty of impartiality.
“The British people have a deal with the BBC; they pay $4 billion a year, and the BBC’s main obligation for that money is to provide impartial news,” Asserson said. “If they do not do that, if they provide partial news, then they are not keeping to their side of the bargain.”
Asserson said his analysis didn’t analyze at what percentage of coverage centered on a certain topic but rather how the organization presented and contextualized the stories. He looked at whether the BBC identified interview subjects associated with Hamas as being from the organization and whether it made clear what Hamas stands for. He also tracked whether the BBC was open about restrictions on reporting from Gaza and the need to rely on Hamas data.
If you report from a restricted area, you must tell the audience. If you don’t, you are not impartial because you allow propaganda to spread.
“If you report from a restricted area, you must tell the audience. If you don’t, you are not impartial because you allow propaganda to spread,” he said. “The BBC probably reports from Gaza with the people it hires from there five to six times a day, and they are breaking this rule every time.”
Another recurring bias the report identified was the omission of key facts. Asserson noted that the BBC rarely mentioned the 250,000 Israelis forced to flee their homes due to constant shelling. It often failed to provide details about the events of October 7, failed to make note of Hamas’ explicitly antisemitic ideology, and failed to cite Hamas statements that the group would carry out such attacks again.
The BBC paints Israel as a massive Goliath facing a puny opponent, the Palestinians, and that’s simply not the reality
The BBC often focuses on Gaza and ignores the multiple fronts threatening Israeli civilians, Asserson said. “A very important part of the story is being omitted. This is not trivial,” he explained. “The BBC paints Israel as a massive Goliath facing a puny opponent, the Palestinians, and that’s simply not the reality.”
Asserson’s analysis found that only 30% to 40% of the network’s coverage is neutral. Of the biased content, more than 90% is anti-Israel.
He added that the BBC’s Arabic-language coverage is “far worse.” “BBC Arabic is a platform for Hamas,” he said.
The report was followed by an open letter in The Times by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council, and the Community Security Trust, which supported the findings and condemned the BBC’s coverage. The organizations argued that the BBC’s errors had “real-world consequences,” contributing to the “delegitimization of Israel in the public sphere” and fueling rising rates of antisemitism.
The letter also criticized the BBC’s response to the Jewish community’s concerns, describing the broadcaster’s reaction as “defensive and dismissive.”
The BBC vehemently denied Asserson’s accusation that it had breached its own guidelines. In a statement, the broadcaster said it would “carefully consider” the report but raised concerns about the methodology, particularly its reliance on artificial intelligence. A BBC spokesperson emphasized that coverage cannot be evaluated by simply counting specific words without considering the broader context.
Sharon Wheeler, senior lecturer in journalism and PR at the University of the West of England, noted that the BBC consistently faces criticism from all political sides.
For example, a December 2023 report accused the BBC of anti-Palestinian bias. That report, published by researchers Greg Philo and Mike Berry in openDemocracy, analyzed patterns in the BBC’s reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 2000. Overall, the researchers wrote, the BBC’s reporting presented a narrative that, while Palestinian suffering is unfortunate, Israelis were retaliating for Palestinian attacks, and an end to those attacks would bring an end to the conflict.
The researchers also observed that Israeli casualties were given more media attention than Palestinian ones, with terms like “atrocity” and “murder” frequently used to describe Israeli deaths, while such language was seldom applied to Palestinian deaths.
“For peace to have any chance, the reasons for the conflict must be understood and seriously addressed,” the researchers concluded.
For Seib, the University of Southern California professor emeritus, it comes as no surprise that the same news report might be interpreted by one viewer as biased toward Israel and by another viewer as biased against Israel. Media fairness “depends on the eye of the beholder,” he said.
He traced the challenges of war reporting back to the Vietnam War, when the US military initially gave journalists very limited access. The Pentagon later rewrote its policies in an attempt to improve relations with the media. By the time the Iraq War began in 2003, the US had implemented a new policy of embedding reporters with troops, which helped improve the accuracy of coverage.
Israel has allowed very few journalists to enter Gaza and has required that all who do so clear their reporting with the Israeli military before publication.
Even in areas with less stringent restrictions, it can be difficult to get reporters on the ground in war zones. Wheeler, the University of the West of England lecturer, said that makes it challenging for international news organizations to properly cover wars.
“There are often either not enough people on the ground or not enough people with good knowledge,” she told The Media Line, noting that many articles in UK papers about foreign wars are written based on information from news agencies like Agence France-Presse and Reuters. “My guess is this is not the traditional flak jacket in front of the camera,” she added.
Wheeler pointed to a recent incident involving the London-based Jewish Chronicle where a freelance journalist allegedly fabricated stories and misrepresented his résumé.
“It’s well known that the UK press often struggles with foreign stories,” she said. “The question of the 21st century: Who is on the ground and who is trying to put together their story from an office in London?”
Plosker said that his organization would give the media overall a failing grade for its reporting on the Gaza war. He said that much of the international coverage was biased against Israel and failed to uphold basic journalistic standards such as fact-checking, impartiality, and providing context.
He noted some moments when international outlets attempted a more balanced view, such as The New York Times’ coverage of the hostages and the BBC’s decision to air a documentary on the Nova festival attack.
“After October 7, we had a couple of days of grace, if you will. There was sympathy for what happened. That dissipated extremely quickly,” Plosker said. “As soon as we started responding, Israel has been presented as the aggressor, which is common in every conflict we’ve had over the last decades with Hamas. People effectively try to justify Palestinian actions rather than recognizing this as part of a much bigger picture.”
Rashi, the Ariel University professor, also expressed frustration with media portrayals of Israel as the aggressor. He criticized many international newspapers for reporting on sexual violence during the October 7 attacks only after that violence was confirmed by the United Nations and the White House.
“It took 50 years to deny the Holocaust, and it didn’t even take five days to deny there was rape on October 7,” Rashi said.
