IN DECEMBER Drop Site News published an investigation by English journalist and Guardian columnist Owen Jones. That investigation has exposed the extent that the Israeli regime has its tentacles wrapped around Britain's national public broadcaster, the BBC.
The exhaustive report, coming in at over 9,000 words, is based on interviews that Jones conducted with thirteen current and former BBC staffers. They have described how the BBC's coverage of Israel and its war on Gaza has been heavily skewered in favour of Israel.
That pro-Israel bias has provoked protest within the BBC. In November, more than one hundred BBC employees signed an open letter to BBC management, accusing it of failing to adhere to its own editorial guidelines. The letter said that the BBC had lacked 'consistently fair and evidence-based journalism in its coverage of Gaza.'
One BBC journalist who Jones interviewed told him that the letter was 'a last resort after several had tried to engage with management using the usual channels, and were just ignored.'
During the course of his investigation, one name was consistently mentioned; that of Raffi Berg, the BBC News online Middle East editor. Owen Jones was repeatedly told that Berg consistently ignored the BBC's policy of editorial impartiality.
'He did very little to hide his objective of watering anything critical of Israel', a former BBC journalist told Jones.
'Almost every correspondent you know has an issue with him (Berg), another BBC journalist said. 'He has been named in multiple meetings, but management just ignore it.'
Berg has close connections to both the CIA and to Mossad. Some three years before joining the BBC, he was a News Editor for the US State, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, a CIA front group. Berg himself has not disputed that he was working for the CIA, telling the Jerusalem Telegraph that he was 'absolutely thrilled' working secretly for the agency.
In 2020 Berg published the book, Red Sea Spies: the True Story of Mossad's Fake Diving Resort. The book lauds Israel and its intelligence service and was written in collaboration with a former Mossad commander.
Berg has remained silent in the face of the mounting criticism directed at him. However, since the publication of the investigation by Owen Jones, Berg has hired a defamation lawyer to fight his corner. That lawyer, Mark Curtis, is the former director of UK Lawyers for Israel.
SINCE ISRAEL began its genocidal assault on Gaza, Radio New Zealand (RNZ) has, like the BBC, been increasingly accused of favouring Israel in its coverage of events in Gaza.
Despite the slaughter and destruction that the Israeli military has committed since October 2023, RNZ, also like the BBC, still refuses to accept that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Even though the International Criminal Court says that Israel has a case to answer and has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, RNZ's news reports continue to frame Israel as pursuing a legitimate 'war' in Gaza.
Most of RNZ's coverage of Gaza comes from Reuters and the BBC. Although many BBC journalists might be concerned that the BBC's coverage of Gaza is being 'massaged' to present Israel in the best possible light, that isn't the view of RNZ's chief news editor Mark Stevens. He told staff last year that the accuracy and impartiality of news reports from BBC and Reuters could generally be 'relied' upon.
But that's not what others think. Filmmaker Andrea Bosshard commented on her Facebook page (December 30):
'The Israeli military said...' 'the Israeli military said...', 'the Israeli military said...', 'the Israeli military said... '. Four times in one article on Radio New Zealand today - unchallenged. Shame on you, RNZ for, in your own words on editorial policy, 'present(ing) contested or contestable statements or characterisation as facts or as if they are uncontested'.
Former RNZ journalist Mick Hall says that RNZ management have ignored the concerns expressed about BBC's coverage of Gaza:
'In the case of its use of BBC stories, given serious and well-understood concerns raised by BBC staff about pro-Israel bias by their broadcaster (Cook, 2024), RNZ’s continued editorial policy of republishing this material without changes, other than style points, suggests its management is either unaware or unconcerned about the threat of carrying imbalanced reporting.'
We have a concerning situation that RNZ is uncritically republishing BBC news stories on Gaza that have likely been vetted by Raffi Berg, Israel's man in the BBC and a known CIA and Mossad collaborator. Can it only be coincidence that RNZ's refusal to acknowledge that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and the gravest of war crimes, is exactly what the Zionist lobby wants?
Israel can rely on RNZ staff not to rock the boat. While many BBC journalists might have gone public to protest that BBC management is skewing stories in favour of Israel's narratives, the silence from RNZ journalists has been deafening.
At a time when the media industry is collapsing and shedding jobs at a rapid rate, RNZ journalists may be reluctant to take a position that puts them at odds with a conservative RNZ management that seeks not to contradict government foreign policy.
But it could also be because the meek and deferential liberalism that RNZ normally exhibits doesn't extend to supporting anti-colonial struggles elsewhere in the world, even if genocide is being committed by a country with one of the biggest military forces in the world and is being supplied with arms by the United States and other western countries.
As well-known New Zealand journalist David Robie has noted:
'...it is shameful that the New Zealand media has been so silent over this most horrendous episode of our times — genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity in front of our very eyes for 15 months. To my knowledge, journalists in Aotearoa have not made even made statements of solidarity with the journalists of Gaza and their horrific sacrifice to bear witness to the truth.'
Journalists in New Zealand are represented by E tu. But it too, as far as Gaza is concerned, also lost its voice. Given that over 200 journalists have now been killed in Gaza by Israel, it's disgraceful and unacceptable that the union has said nothing. Nothing!
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