The BBC - edits the news to fit its Political Agenda?

From Take-A-Pen's London correspondent - 8 April 2007:

Returning to London on 6 April 2007, on Easter Friday, after a month in Berkeley, California, I tuned in to the BBC to hear what was going on in the world.

There was no shortage of news: 15 British naval hostages had recently been released by Iran and Britons were troubled by the confessions and demeanor of the captives on Iranian TV.  Four British and five US soldiers had been killed in Iraq. Chlorine gas suicide bombings were being used in Iraq.

The Pope had led a candlelight procession around the Coliseum in Rome to celebrate Easter.

Three British Muslims of Pakistani descent, born in West Yorkshire, appeared in court in London charged with complicity in the 7/7 London transport bombings.

Locally a black youngster had been knifed to death, the sixth in London in the past month and a pregnant women had been shot and killed in south London.

With all of these current items what did the BBC include in its national news headlines this Easter Saturday morning the 7^th of April?  ... "Israel fired a rocket into Gaza yesterday".

Clearly the deep-rooted obsession to portray 'nasty Israelis oppressing defenceless Palestinians' continues unabated in the bowels of the BBC. The several rockets fired by Palestinians into the town of  Sderot the previous days and later that same day were not reported at all by the BBC.

The world-shattering news about an Israeli military rocket  (shot at group of Palestinian gunmen preparing to launch a Kassam rocket) was  followed by news of a demonstration in Gaza to protest the continued disappearance of the BBC correspondent Alan Johnston. (read also "The BBC and Palestinians admit biased BBC reporting" - on our Home page - the Editor) As a BBC correspondent reported later in the day from Jerusalem: 'the kidnapping of Alan Johnston is preventing the news of the Palestinian situation from getting out'.

One must assume therefore that in having to remind listeners of the continued abduction by Palestinians of the BBC correspondent in Gaza it was thought necessary to 'balance' this negative item by reporting an Israeli military action.

Obviously the BBC and others are concerned about the plight of Alan Johnston and fear for his safety- even the Archbishop of York John Sentamu, mentioned the BBC reporter in his Easter address, 'he is not your enemy' he told the Palestinians. This has been put more bluntly both by the BBC and by the Palestinians, saying clearly that Johnston is an asset for the Palestinians (read also "The BBC and Palestinians admit biased BBC reporting" - above, in the British Recent Items)

In a biography of Alan Johnston broadcast later that same Easter Saturday and repeated on Easter Sunday, there was a tribute from Liliane Landor the BBC World Editor. Of Lebanese descent, Liliane is responsible now for all the BBC World Service News and Current Affairs programmes in English.

Liliane Landor's Arab background (not the language only but years of Arab activism in here career) may be interesting for those who wonder at the process whereby the BBC maintains an institutional bias against the State of Israel.