The BBC and Gaza (update)

Further to this recent piece, I see that Robin Shepherd has some interesting background detail on the German photographer, Kai Wiedenhofer and the BBC interview with him:

'Wiedenhofer has lived among the Palestinians for years. He is effectively an anti-Zionist campaigner. He has drawn on Nazi imagery, implied parallels between the Star of David and the Swastika, captioned photos with words such as “ghetto” creating a comparison with the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943, and promoted the notion of Israeli “apartheid”. Speaking about Wiedenhofer’s photos of the security barrier, Levi Salomon, of the Jewish Forum for Democracy and Against anti-Semitism, an initiative of the 12,000-member Berlin Jewish community, told the Jerusalem Post in 2008: “In the motifs he chooses for his photos, Wiedenhofer’s political views become clear. In his work, he presents a completely distorted, one-sided image of the Israeli security installation.”

Basic journalistic ethics would clearly lead any normal media outlet to relate such information to the reader or viewer since informing ones audience about the credibility of the source is a central element of the journalistic enterprise. The BBC, of course, tells you nothing about him leaving the impression he is just an everyday photographer innocently doing his job. The reporter, Anna Macnamee, relates the fact that he has been accused of anti-Semitism only to allow Wiedenhofer casually to dismiss it:

“Oh,” he laughs” What is anti-Semitic photography? This is also a term that doesn’t exist.” All he did was take pictures of what the Israeli army destroyed, he says as the camera shifts to yet another photo of a maimed civilian woman. His previous comparisons with Nazi Germany — all such comparisons are considered anti-Semitic by the EU’s monitoring organisation on racism — are not thrown back at him. His denial is allowed to stand without a shred of the evidence being presented to the audience.'

The BBC's attitude towards Israel stinks to high heaven. By the way I have yet to receive a reply from the BBC Editorial Complaints Unit - see this for details.