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Monday 28 March 2011

Another complaint to the BBC


Complaint type: BBC News
 
Location: England
 
What is your complaint about: BBC News Online
 
Address of the page: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12873532
 
Complaint category: Offence
 
Complaint summary: Ignoring the deaths of Israelis and an English woman
 
Full complaint:
Your article about an Israeli air strike was as biased as I would expect from the BBC and I would not normally have bothered even taking the time to complain but then you decided to include this passage: 'In the past week at least 10 Palestinians, including several civilians and children, have been killed by Israeli attacks. In the same period, militants in Gaza have fired more than 80 rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel.' No mention of the five members, including three children, of the Fogel family who were stabbed and slashed to death whilst they slept. No mention of the British woman Mary Jean Gardner who was blown up by a terrorist bomb in Jerusalem. Do the deaths of Israelis not count to the BBC? Does the life of a British woman killed abroad not concern the BRITISH Broadcasting Corporation?
 
Receive a reply: Yes
 
Contacted us before: Yes
 
Complaint related to previous contact: No
 
Title: Mr
 
First name: NotaSheep
 
Surname: MaybeaGoat
 
Email address: notasheepmaybeagoat@gmail.com
 
Under 13: No
 
I wonder how the BBC will justify their decision to ignore the deaths of the Fogel family and Mary Jean Gardner.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a bizarre complaint. As the death of the woman at the bus stop bombing and the killing of the Fogel family aren't directly linked to the exchange of air strikes and rocket attack, why would they be mentioned.

It's worth noting that on this page there's links to reports on the killing of the Fogel family and the bus bombing, so what's your point?

I hope the BBC treat your complaint with the contempt it deserves.

Not a sheep said...

So you think the murder of the Fogel family is irrelevant as well; what a pleasant person you are. Links are not the same as inclusions in the report.

It is a good job I don't treat your comments with the contempt they richly deserve.

Not a sheep said...

You say 'As the death of the woman at the bus stop bombing and the killing of the Fogel family aren't directly linked to the exchange of air strikes and rocket attack, why would they be mentioned.'
If you believe that then why did the BBC include this line 'More than 1,300 Palestinians died in the war two years ago. Thirteen Israelis were killed.'' Is that directly linked?

Anonymous said...

Yeah, it is directly linked. Cast Lead was essentially a response to an increase in rocket attack.

And where did I say the killing of the Fogel family was irrelevant? I merely pointed out it wasn't necessary to be mentioned in that report - and where would the BBC draw the line in future? Would they have go back months, years even, listing deaths of Israelis - or Palestinians for that matter - until you were remotely content?

Not a sheep said...

So only deaths from rocket attacks are directly linked, no other death counts? Your logic is so flawed as to be laughable.

What would make me content at the moment is if you would just go away.

Anonymous said...

Lord almighty! Did I say any other death didn't count? If you can't get the point, then you must be even more lacking in intelligence and insight than I originally thought...

I'll go away when you get my point.

Not a sheep said...

If you can't see why the murders of the Fogel family are relevant to and should have been reported in that article and also why they are not being reported then you are not as bright as you clearly think you are.

I get your point, but you are just wrong.

Anonymous said...

Ah, no. You disagree with me, but that does not make me wrong.

Not a sheep said...

Me disagreeing with you does not indeed automatically make you wrong but in this instance you are spectacularly wrong. Please just accept it and go and bother someone else.

Anonymous said...

Well, if we're going to act like schoolchildren then I think, nay know, that you're wrong.

The deaths of the Fogels and of Mary Gardner are being reported by the BBC, so what else you got? I will again point out that they aren't directly linked to the rocket exchanges, they are stand-alone stories.

When will you realise that you are wrong, and allowing your own bias to cloud your views? I'll go away then, if you don't wish to engage further

Not a sheep said...

Sorry Anon but you are wrong, odd that you think only schoolchildren are right or wrong, maybe you are one still - intellectually anyway.

The murders of the Fogel famil and Mary Jean Gardner were grudgingly reported by the BBC, put into 'context' ie: blamed on prior Israeli acts and then swiftly forgotten. The Fogel family murder was a vile crime but one that the BBC has done its best to downplay, where are the family photos on the BBC, where are the anguished interviews with the remaining family members, both would have appeared prominently had this been a Palestinian family killed by an Israeli airstrike but these are 'settlers' and the BBC seem to consider them if not deserving of their horrific fate then at least having died for understandable reasons. The whole Israel/Palestinian issue is reported by the BBC in such a way that fairness doesn't even impinge on it. As for the bomb in Jerusalem that killed Mary Jean Gardner, the BBC's coverage was as minimal as they could make it. A British woman was killed by a terrorist bomb and had she died anywhere else the coverage would have been far more extensive but she died in Jerusalem and she was an evangelical Christian so shhhh. Had she died in Ramallah, killed by an Israeli air raid and had she been a 'peace campaigner' it would have been headline news and the BBC drama department would already have started commissionin the drama-doc about her life and death.

Your view as to what is linked and what is not is so narrow as to be laughable and if you cannot see that then I fear that there may be no hope for you.

The only sensible think you have said is that you will go way, please do so as I do not want to engage with someone with views as blinkered and wrong as you.

I hope that you never have to experience the pain and suffering of losing someone you love to a terrorist bomb but if you ever do then maybe you will understand why the BBC's anti-Israel bias is not just a debating point but a very real matter of life and death.

Anonymous said...

Ah, it's like looking in a mirror in that case.....

I wish you could write like Anna Raccoon as well, then we might get more sense out of you.

Not a sheep said...

Good grief. I was joking about you being a schoolchild now I am wondering if I might have been correct.

You said you would go away; since you are obviously unwilling or unable to argue against my points, please do just that.

Anonymous said...

Your hypothetical situations - the hiding place of someone who has no actual point to make - aren't worth responding to as they were so childish in their construction. Neither you nor I know how such hypothetical incidents would have been reported, so it's an easy fallback argument.

Agreed, perhaps the full horror of the Fogel killings would have been better conveyed by reproducing photographic evidence, but it's debatable what that would have achieved other than upsetting people who stumble across the images.

Believe me, this exchange is as frustrating for me as it seems to be for you. However, I again posit the view that it is you who are blinkered.

Have you lost a loved one in such circumstances? I sadly, do have personal experience of family loss in the Northern Ireland conflict, but that doesn't stop me from being able to open my mind.

Not a sheep said...

To answer your last question first; if you had read my blog for some time you would know the answer to that question.

As to you denigrating my 'hypothetical situations;, they are based on much previous media coverage. I am sure if you spent less time here annoying me then you could find examples but I feel you are less interested in the truth than in winding me up. Your line of argument is becoming more troll-like by the post, are you seeing how far I will humour you?

Re the photos, I actually meant the Fogel family photos before they were butchered, not after. Something to show that these were living, breathing, loving ordinary human beings and not just faceless 'settlers'. The BBC has previously put photos of killed Palestinians in relevant articles. The dehumanisation of Israelis is a tactic of the Islamists that surround Israel & want to see it destroyed, by their actions the BBC seem to be willing accomplices.

If you disagree with me then that is up to you but I know that what I have said is correct so I don't see any point in continuing with this line of conversation.

Any more comments from you on this thread will not be posted but may be stored. Any non-constructive comments along similar lines on other threads will be dealt with in a similar fashion.

NCF