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Wednesday 17 August 2011

Chasing the BBC for a response to a very fair complaint

Further to this post, this post and this post, I noticed that I had yet to receive a reply form the BBC re this very simple query.

Here's a reminder of my problem with the BBC:
'In the BBC article headlined 'Israel forces 'kill two militants in central Gaza'', the BBC include this map


This map makes it seem as though Israel is both enormous and surrounds Gaza thus explaining how Israel has been able to blockade it for some years now. There is of course a problem with this - Israel does not surround Gaza. The country that borders Gaza to the South East is Egypt not Israel, that is where the Rafah Crossing is...


So why have the BBC omitted the word Egypt from that first map? If the BBC come back and say it was an unfortunate accident due to the scale of the map I will not believe them...'

'Today I notice in this article the same omission.

Why do the BBC not like to show the fact that Egypt borders Gaza on their maps of the Middle East? Are they trying to further their narrative of a bullying Israel dominating the immediate area, even though that is at variance with the facts. Here's a map of the Arab World showing how large Israel really is...


Here's my chasing complaint:
'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-14035536
Complaint category: Factual Error or Inaccuracy
Complaint summary: Deliberate misdirection of readers of article
Full complaint: On 6 July I complained about the deliberate misdirection of readers of the above article. 'In the BBC article headlined 'Israel forces 'kill two militants in central Gaza'', the BBC include a map. This map makes it seem as though Israel is both enormous and surrounds Gaza thus explaining how Israel has been able to blockade it for some years now. There is of course a problem with this: Israel does not surround Gaza. The country that borders Gaza to the South East is Egypt not Israel, that is where the Rafah Crossing is... So why have the BBC omitted the word Egypt from that first map?' A day later you published another map in this article - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14051618 - and yet again the map missed off any reference to Egypt. I can see no excuse for this deliberately misleading of the public. I can also not see why I have yet to receive a response to my original complaint.
Receive a reply: Yes
Contacted us before: Yes
Complaint related to previous contact: Yes
Reason for contacting again: Haven't received a response yet
Title: Mr
First name: NotaSheep
Surname: MaybeaGoat
Email address: notasheepmaybeagoat@gmail.com
Under 13: No'

Let's see if the BBC manage to get a reply to me.

2 comments:

Span Ows said...

well spotted! Give 'em hell.

Anonymous said...

Just a small point that doesn't actually alter the very justifiable critisism of the BBC that you make is that "The country that borders Gaza to the South East is Egypt not Israel." should say The country that borders Gaza to the South West is Egypt not Israel.