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UK Media: The Israel Line or The Bottom Line?
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If the BBC wants to win over the Jewish community, it’ll have a lot of work to do. An Institute for Jewish Policy Research survey (pdf format) found that a whopping 80 percent of UK Jews believe the Beeb is biased against Israel.
Because the BBC is significantly supported by households paying an annual £145.50 license fee (which is becoming irrelevant thanks to online catch-up), new BBC executives know they have to keep their customers happy.
Which brings us to James Harding, the BBC’s new director of news. Can he make a difference with the network’s institutional bias against Israel? He has four hopeful things going for him:
Harding, who is Jewish, will also have to leave behind the pro-Israeli line of the Times. In a debate at the Jewish Community Centre For London in 2011, Harding said “I am pro-Israel” and that in reporting on the Middle East, “I haven’t found it too hard” because “the Times has been pro-Israel for a long time”. However, he also stressed the need for balanced news reporting and said he was also in favour of a Palestinian state.
Perhaps The Guardian’s more concerned about its bottom line than its Israel line: Every day, UK taxpayers pay for 60,000 copies of The Guardian delivered to the Beeb.
Image: CC BY-SA HonestReporting, Flickr/Images_of_Money
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