A new report by Drop Site News, published on 28 December, revealed that BBC editor Raffi Berg, who holds near-total control over the broadcaster’s online coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict, has used pro-Israel slant in his reports.
“His job is essentially to tone down any criticism of Israel,” one former BBC journalist stated. Drop Site News interviewed 13 current and former BBC staff members, who described how the BBC’s coverage often minimizes the value of Palestinian lives, overlooks Israeli atrocities, and falsely equates the two sides in an inherently uneven conflict. One BBC journalist accused Berg of playing a central role in fostering a “culture of systematic Israeli propaganda” within the organization.
Another staff member emphasized the extent of Berg’s influence, saying, “The amount of power he holds is staggering.” A former BBC journalist shared that there was widespread fear among staff that any coverage related to Israel or Palestine required approval from Berg: “If you wanted to pitch a story, you had to get Raffi’s signoff first.”
In one instance, Berg downplayed a report by Amnesty International, which accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. The headline chosen by Berg read, “Israel rejects ‘fabricated’ claims of genocide,” and the story was delayed for 12 hours to limit its online exposure.
The journalists interviewed by Drop Site also observed that the Amnesty report was not aired on any of the BBC’s major news programs, including News At One, News At Six, News At Ten, or Newsnight on BBC Two.
One journalist recalled the process for submitting stories about Gaza or Israel: “Anyone writing about these topics is asked, ‘Has it gone to edpol, lawyers, and Raffi?’” Raffi Berg, who has written a book praising secretive Israeli operations, holds significant sway over public perceptions due to the BBC’s massive reach, with its website receiving over 1.1 billion visits in May alone.
The ongoing war in Gaza, which has claimed the lives of over 45,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and devastated much of the besieged territory, is covered by the BBC through a distinctly pro-Israel lens. According to Rami Ruhayem, a BBC Arabic correspondent based in Beirut, while terms like “massacre,” “slaughter,” and “atrocities” are used frequently when describing Hamas, they are rarely, if ever, applied to Israeli actions.
In one report, the BBC headline, “Israel Gaza: Father loses 11 family members in one blast,” obscured Israel’s responsibility for the deaths of an entire family in a missile strike. Drop Site News pointed out that when Israel is identified as the perpetrator, it is often with the qualifier “reportedly.”
The BBC also adopts language favored by the Israeli military to downplay its actions, using terms like “evacuations” instead of referring to the forcible transfer or ethnic cleansing of Palestinian civilians. In one instance, the BBC headlined a story about Israel’s siege on Gaza with the phrase, “Israel aims to cut Gaza ties after war with Hamas.”
The BBC only briefly mentioned Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s vow to impose a “full siege” on Gaza and his derogatory reference to Palestinians as “human animals.”
The journalists who spoke to Drop Site News also described how they made efforts to ask BBC management for more balanced reporting, but these requests were routinely ignored. “Many of us have raised concerns that Raffi has the ability to reshape every story, and we are ignored,” one journalist said. Another noted, “Almost every correspondent has an issue with him, but management just brushes it off.”
