Survey: 4 out of 5 UK Jews think BBC is hostile to Israel

The vast majority of British Jews (four out of five) consider the BBC's news coverage to be biased against Israel, a recent survey has found. Only one out of five respondents considered the coverage to be fair or favorable toward Israel.

In its April 2013 survey "Jews and the News: News consumption habits and opinions of Jews in Britain," The Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) found that respondents who supported the Conservative Party were twice as likely to perceive the BBC as being "heavily biased" against Israel as Labour Party supporters. Further, self-defined "religious" respondents were more likely than "secular" respondents to consider the BBC to be biased.

However, respondents with higher levels of educational attainment were less likely to consider the BBC’s news coverage to be biased than those with lower level or no qualifications.

The JPR noted that no attempt was made in the report to adjudicate either way whether the BBC’s reporting on Israel is, or is not, biased.

Respondents were divided as to whether they felt it is ever justifiable for Jews to publicly criticise Israel in the media. A quarter felt criticism can "never" be justified, but a third felt that Jews should "always" feel free to do so should they consider it justified. Well over half of Labour supporters felt Jews should "always" feel free to express critical opinions if they wanted to, compared with less than a quarter of Conservative supporters.

"Religious" respondents were more than four times as likely to "never" consider criticism acceptable as "secular" respondents. And respondents with higher level qualifications were twice as likely to agree that criticism should "always" be acceptable as those with lower level qualifications.

The BBC was by far the most important provider of terrestrial and online news among respondents to the survey. BBC TV news was viewed by nine out of ten people in the week prior to the survey and the BBC’s online news service was viewed by one out of two -- no other online news source was nearly as popular.

As a publicly funded body, the BBC is required by its charter to be free from both political and commercial bias. Given the important role played by the BBC in delivering news in general, and about Israel in particular, both to Britain’s Jewish and general population, it is instructive to understand whether respondents considered the BBC’s news coverage of Israel to be balanced.

"It is apparent from respondents’ personal perspectives, that the BBC’s news coverage does not reflect the way most Jews see Israel, which, as JPR’s Israel Survey showed, means so much to so many Jewish people. Further work is required to understand why Jews feel the way they do about the BBC’s news coverage, whether such views are held by other groups, and indeed, whether Jewish people feel the BBC is also biased in reporting on other topics, unrelated to Israel," the JPR said.

טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו