Jewish Labour supporters protest against BBC bias

JVL Introduction

The Morning Star reports on the JVL-organised Jewish demonstration outside the BBC on Sunday 8th December in response to our anger at the Corporation’s demonstrable bias against Labour and Jeremy Corbyn in its general election coverage.

A letter of protest was handed in to the BBC during the course of the demonstration.

Pictures below courtesy of Jeff Duckett, Angie Mindel and others unnamed. Click on these images to enlarge them.

It is followed by a report on the politicalcleanup blog.

This article was originally published by Morning Star on Sun 8 Dec 2019. Read the original here.

Jewish Labour supporters protest against BBC bias

Jewish Labour supporters protested outside the BBC’s Portland Place headquarters in London today over the corporation’s blatant bias in coverage of the general election campaign.

Members and supporters of Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) said the corporation’s election coverage “falls disastrously short of its own formal standards of accuracy and balance.”

The campaign group said that repeated and unproven allegations that the Labour Party “is riddled with anti-semitism” were being reported by the BBC as “quasi-factual, with no indication that they are fiercely contested.”

JVL said the BBC was “persistently sidelining expert Jewish commentators critical of the attacks on Labour.”

In a letter to BBC director-general Tony Hall and director of news and current affairs Fran Unsworth, JVL co-chairs Jenny Manson and Leah Levane said: “In the closing stages of an acrimonious election campaign, the BBC’s coverage of anti-semitism charges against the Labour Party has been both unbalanced and uncritical.”

The group said the most recent example of BBC bias was its uncritical reporting of the Jewish Labour Movement’s “leak” of its own submission to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).

“JLM re-ran long-debunked allegations against Jeremy Corbyn and the party, adding uncorroborated charges from individuals, many of whom have already had their testimony powerfully challenged,” the group said.

“BBC coverage of JLM’s manufactured ‘news’ entirely disregarded JVL’s own submission to the EHRC which is freely available online. This was yet another example of the corporation’s disgraceful practice of editing out of the news stream material that challenges the ‘Labour is anti-semitic’ narrative.”

 


And here is the report published today, 9th December on the politicalcleanup blog

Media 106: fearful establishment suppresses news of Jewish support for Labour

On Sunday, Jewish Labour supporters continued their protest at BBC bias during the coverage of the general election campaign, which includes persistent sidelining of expert Jewish commentators critical of the attacks on Labour.

The latest protest took place outside the BBC’s Portland Place headquarters in London on Sunday

Efforts to silence such news in order to prevent the election of a Corbyn-led government include direct party funding of a government which appoints the chair and four directors of the board of the ‘independent’ BBC. To the indirect funding of right-wing think tanks is added pressure from corporate lobbyists. These efforts are further strengthened by control of 71% of national newspapers and 81% of local newspapers, by corporations and billionaires (Edinburgh TV Festival, August 2018).

Members and supporters of Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) said that the corporation’s election coverage “falls disastrously short of its own formal standards of accuracy and balance.” The repeated and unproven allegations that the Labour Party “is riddled with anti-semitism” were being reported by the BBC as “quasi-factual, with no indication that they are fiercely contested.” 

In a letter to BBC director-general Tony Hall and director of news and current affairs, Fran Unsworth, JVL co-chairs Jenny Manson (right) and Leah Levane said: “In the closing stages of an acrimonious election campaign, the BBC’s coverage of anti-semitism charges against the Labour Party has been both unbalanced and uncritical.”

The most recent example of BBC bias was its uncritical reporting of the Jewish Labour Movement’s resurrection of long-debunked allegations against Jeremy Corbyn and the party, adding uncorroborated charges from individuals, many of whom have already had their testimony powerfully challenged.

When Jeremy Corbyn delivered the Alternative Mactaggart Lecture, he told vital truths about the corporate media. The lecture ‘went viral’ last year and should be recalled during the approach to the UK General Election on December 12.

The clip began: “A free press is essential to our democracy. But much of our press isn’t very free at all . . . The unhealthy sway of a few corporations and billionaires shapes and skews the priorities and worldview of powerful sections of the media”.

Mr Corbyn then called for the BBC to be freed from government control and made representative of the country it serves.

Corporations, billionaires and their employees understandably fear that their ‘sway’ will be diminished by the election of Corbyn, who would form a government dedicated to ‘building a Britain for the many not the few’.

 

Comments (5)

  • Jennifer Joy-Matthews says:

    Well done JVL! Someone needs to stand up for Jeremy Corbyn and all the Labour party members who have been subject to false claims of antisemitism. The right wing media including the BBC are a complete disgrace!

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  • David Stretton says:

    Sorry if my message is in the wrong place but felt I had to reply to Jews4Jeremy Face book post. Couldn’t see the video but got the audio…marvellous…did I hear the Internationale in the background?…what would the Daily Wail.think?..I can imagine the editorial now!
    On serious note…a little boy with pneumonia had to lie down in a hospital corridor because there weren’t any beds available at the Leeds General…If that doesn’t make you want to vote Labour then your beyond redemption.

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  • Mary Davies says:

    Well done JVL. You are an asset to the Labour Movement.

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  • Derek Taylor says:

    This sickens me. I know, we know that there is really one-sided coverage of ‘Labour’s anti-Semitism’ by the BBC and members of the printed press yet when I bring up the subject to friends or colleagues most react by asking why, if my accusations are true, no-one talks of it. I’m so frustrated; how can we get through to the UK media, and the World at large that this is happening?

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  • Bob Knowles says:

    What a relief to read the truth from JVL after being blasted by the baseless indignation of the right-wing JLM, i.e. Le Carré, Boyd & Co in The Guardian, the ‘Chief -of-how- many’ Rabbi, The Jewish Chronicle, and the devious tactics of Mesdames Hodge, Ellman, Berger and Smeeth, all of whom can be shown to have brought exaggerated or dishonest accusations of antisemitism against Jeremy Corbyn.
    In a nutshell….I strongly recommend the following book: ‘THE BBC; myth of a public service’, by Tom Mills, Verso 2016. Tom lectures at Aston University and talked to members of Putney Labour Party about it earlier this year. His book explains how the BBC became what it is!

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