The Asserson Report is nearly 200 pages long, detailed, and damning in every respect.
It is difficult to give it justice in a post, but here are some of the highlights:
* A well-designed study of BBC online using ChatGPT to help eliminate bias showing that BBC articles overwhelmingly showed more sympathy for the Palestinian side than the Israeli side.
* Another analysis of three popular BBC TV shows indicating pervasive anti Israel bias. (Negative is pro-Palestinian, positive is pro-Israel.)
* Somewhat more Palestinians interviewed that Israelis in BBC English; far more Palestinians thanIsraelis in BBC Arabic
* For interviewees from neither side, the vast majority were anti-Israel
* Interviewees were treated as unbiased when they were actually pro-Hamas, and many who had affiliations with Hamas were not identified as such
* Violations of BBC guidelines in omitting information: not mentioning the genocidal Hamas charter, not mentioning that Hamas ran a dictatorship in Gaza, refusing to admit there is no press freedom in Gaza, little information on the hostage ordeal, little mention on Israeli socio-economic hardships or 200,000 Israelis displaced during the war
* Associating Israel with "war crimes" far, far more than Hamas
* Huge number of corrections of original presumed death toll of October 7 in Israel but very few similar corrections after the fact of Hamas lies like the Al Ahli Hospital rocket strike
* Consistently favoring Hamas casualty numbers over Israeli estimates, directly violating BBC policy
* Adjectives to evoke sympathy with casualties were far more likely among Gaza casualties than Israeli civilians
* Trend analysis showing bias:
* Consistently interviewing Israeli officials with a hostile tone, and Palestinian officials with sympathy.
The details are almost numbing. There is no way that these are oversights. The entire BBC coverage of the war is undeniably biased and hostile to Israel.
