Complaint
This bulletin included an item on an Israeli air strike in Gaza which had reportedly killed nine of the ten children of a doctor working in Nasser Hospital and severely injured her husband. In the course of the item the presenter interviewed a paediatrician who had recently been working in the same hospital on behalf of Medical Aid for Palestinians, and who recounted what colleagues there had told her of the event. A listener complained that the presenter’s references to the IDF’s statement on the event suggested a false equivalence between “harrowing, credible testimony” and “unchallenged military denials” and tended to frame the debate over the Middle East in a way which distorted reality rather than offering an impartial account. The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the ѿý’s editorial standards of impartiality.
Outcome
The context here is a bitterly-disputed conflict where international media, including the ѿý, have been unable to report independently from Gaza. Given the difficulty of verification, it is particularly important that individuals and organisations which are the subject of serious allegations be given due opportunity to respond. In this instance, the presenter’s references to the IDF statement gave viewers the opportunity to judge for themselves the credibility of what it said, set against the paediatrician’s account and other voices heard in the item. The ECU did not accept that this had the effect of suggesting false equivalence or framing the debate in a misleading way, but considered it was an example of airing an appropriate range of views in keeping with the ѿý’s commitment to impartiality.
Not upheld