Former BBC director-general Greg Dyke (pictured) overreacted to rumors that correspondent Orla Guerin was forced out of Israel. Writing in The Independent, Dyke ably debunked the rumors, then went on to defend the network’s reporting from the Mideast, completely omitting the fact that the BBC’s own board of governors arranged for an independent panel of inquiry to investigate coverage from there:
We investigated many of the complaints and most of the time found our reporting had been totally fair. Of course the pro-Israeli lobby didn’t accept that but then they had a different agenda.
HonestReporting’s own evidence (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8) contradicts Dyke’s claims of impartiality. And we’ve found that relying on the BBC to investigate itself is no better than asking Syria to investigate the assassination of Rafik Hariri. Despite the independent panel’s ongoing work and the Hutton Report, Dyke isn’t easily letting go of his rose-colored glasses.
UPDATE 12/18: Britain’s Chief Rabbi disagrees with Dyke’s assessment of their meeting.
