As per an article in the Jewish Chronicle, a survey by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) has found that an overwhelming majority of Jews in the United Kingdom believe that the BBC is biased against Israel in its news coverage.
You can read the full report here.
JPR's summary of this part of the report runs as follows:
The vast majority of respondents (four out of five) considered BBC News’s coverage to be biased against Israel. 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. On the other hand, 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 figures as regards BBC bias break down in this way:
36% believe the BBC is heavily biased against Israel
43% believe the BBC is somewhat biased against Israel
14% believe the BBC's coverage is balanced
3% believe the BBC's coverage favours Israel
Despite this, the BBC continues to be the go-to source for news for British Jews:
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.
88% viewed BBC News, compared to only 49% for ITN and 44% for both Channel 4 and Sky News, according to JPR's survey.
The figures for newspaper readership are just as interesting. The question posed was, “In the last 7 days, which newspapers, if any, have you read?”:
The Times/Sunday Times - 46%
The Evening Standard - 26%
The Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday - 24%
The Guardian/Observer - 22%
The Daily Telegraph/Sunday Telegraph - 21%
Metro - 19%
The Independent/Independent on Sunday - 7%
The Sun - 6%
The report's author, David Graham, notes a couples of caveats. The first is that the survey was conducted in 2010, and that things may have changed since. The second is that as the original survey was specifically about attitudes towards Israel, the "data may over-represent individuals with an interest in politics and international affairs."
