Overview
- The BBC Board and Editorial Guidance and Standards Committee will conduct a comprehensive appraisal of Middle East reporting to identify lessons.
- Peter Johnston’s report listed missteps, including an incorrect claim about an International Court of Justice genocide finding and flawed casualty reporting.
- The appraisal detailed a TV item that misattributed mass graves to Israeli forces, an erroneous Newsnight question about 14,000 babies, and an article that omitted allegations of Hamas operating from a hospital.
- The corporation acknowledged it failed to disclose that a Gaza documentary narrator was the son of a Hamas official and said reliance on freelancers with pro-Hamas and antisemitic posts was wrong.
- Corrections have been issued, and new training for BBC News Arabic staff is already being rolled out by the standards committee.