“On” a lot more?

I heard a snippet of the Media Show (about 20 minutes in) yesterday afternoon. I understand the topic was bias in the media with regard to the referendum, or the Scottish Spring as I like to think of it. 

One of the guest experts was Greg Philo, (Glasgow Media Group) and, as is his wont, he had to drag the Israel-Palestine issue into it all of a sudden. 

He said:  “It’s clear the Israelis are ‘on’ a lot more than the Palestinians”

I mean WTF?  What-planet-is-he-on? 

Now, let’s ask, just for one second, what evidence does Philo (what an apt name) have for that statement? First of all, how many Israelis make regular appearances on T.V? 

Mark Regev, Daniel Taub and occasionally Peter Lerner. Danny Danon was on HardTalk the other day. So was Yuval Steinitz.  Not Israeli, but “philo-Israel,” Douglas Murray and Melanie Phillips are on quite a few panels. Maureen Lipman?

Then there are some Israeli lefties that are harsh critics of  the Israeli government. Gideon Levy, Ilan Pappé and  people who write for the Guardian. Mira Bar-Hillel. (Only joking) Is Philo including these?

So how many Palestinians? Well, if not actual Palestinians, there are certainly a fair few pro-Palestinians. (PhiloPalestinians)

Mustafa Barghouti, on at least as many times as Mark Regev during O.P.E.  Hanan Ashrawi ditto. Dateline’s top contributor ’arry Batwan, and we saw quite a bit of Manuel Hassassian. Regular guests on programmes like “The Big Questions”: Mehdi Hasan, Mohammad Shafiq, Mo Ansar, Ajmal Masroor, Myriam Francois-Cerrah. All there to have a dig at Israel at the slightest opportunity.  Yasser Abed Rabbo, Fawaz Gerges, Chris Gunness, Dr. Mads Gilbert,  guests on HardTALK. Regular talking heads: Chris Doyle,  George Galloway, Ghada Karmi and Owen Jones, always ready willing and able to propagandise on behalf of Israel’s enemies.

Lucy Winkett, John Bell, with their infamous anti-Israel sentiments,  all contribute to religious broadcasting. Sheihk Ibrahim Mogra, Yasmin Alibhai Brown,  frequently brought in to speak on behalf of the religion of peace, not to mention dozens of Middle East experts that are never off our screens; last but not least, the BBC’s own staff pro-Palestinian advocates and activists - Jon Donnison, Orla Geurin, Zeinab Badawi and Yolande Knell, Jeremy Bowen and the entire cast list from BBC Watch, and the many regular experts who outweigh by far pro Israel spokespersons on current affairs programmes like Dateline, Newsnight, and don’t forget Greg Philo himself. 

I know, I know, I’ve left out hundreds of them. But how can Greg Philo just get away with saying, in passing, in that  there are more Israelis ‘on’ than Palestinians? 

********

For your edification, here’s a small transcription of the snippet.

Steve Hewlett

Steve Hewlett

"What about the basic allegation that the “Yes” is being under or  mis reported in some ways?"

Greg Philo, sounding like a down-market Will Self with a smigeon of Ken Livingstone,  responded:

“Well yes, Salmond was on as far as I can see, as I understand it Salmond and the SNP were on a lot, but the issues were not bein’ discussed. It was being personalised whatever and I mean my own view, I mean I don’t want to comment or not because I haven’t studied it but my own view is that if you said to Alex Salmond “Look we’re not going to have you on so much ” (chuckle) I don’t think he’d be very happy. And I would guess that, I mean it’s very difficult to argue, um prima facie anyway, that someone who’s on such a lot, wall-to-wall, that is in some way puttin’ ‘im down. You know, it’s clear that if you look at the Israel Palestine stuff, it’s clear that the Israelis are on a lot more than the Palestinians, you know, and that fits the map.....it’s..”

SH

"But it hasn’t happened in this case..."

GP 

"No. I would have thought, I haven’t counted it, but you don’t get that impression."

Preface to a study

One of the frustrating things about answering the question 'Is the BBC biased?' is that, however long you may blog about it, providing anecdotal evidence by the bucketful over many years and finding that people who agree with you agree with you, is that huge numbers of people don't agree with you - or don't even care about the issue.

That's why I always hoped (with hope in my heart) that statistical evidence (like counting interruptions) would help win over some of the unconverted - the guiding principle behind my 2009-10 blog. (I think I succeeded there, but the BBC didn't agree.) 

I still think such an approach could have an impact (though I've not exactly exerted myself much on that front recently it has to be said).

Unfortunately though (for those who think like us, vis a vis the BBC), the statistically-minded bias hunters/debunkers who agree with me about the value of stats tend to lie on the Left, and that's why much of our efforts can be derailed by a well-publicised (sometimes BBC-funded) academic study which uses statistics, like that (deeply dubious) Cardiff University report from Mike Berry & Co. and which "finds" that the BBC is biased in favour of, say, the Conservatives, Eurosceptics and business. That survey, you may remember, delighted the likes of Owen Jones, many a Guardian/New Statesmen reader, and  the Twitterati - and it probably delighted the BBC too, on the 'if we're seen to be getting flak from both sides, then people will assume we must be getting it about right' principle! It didn't delight many on the Right, however.

Then there's Mike Berry's friend Greg Philo from the Glasgow Media Group, ready to produce statistically-backed reports "proving" that the BBC is pro-Israel by a margin of 2:1. I've never come across his previous efforts, but he's apparently working on the current BBC coverage too - and I think we can guess in advance what he'll "find". 

The thing is, though, that no one who doesn't want to believe them will believe them any more that they believed my interruption statistics or everyone else's anecdotes - particularly if the bias hunter's own bias too obvious (eg. if the academics in question also happen to be public far-left/anti-Israel activists.) The ad hom fallacy may be a fallacy but it's not always wrong, and confirmation bias is very real indeed.

But, nonetheless, that Cardiff Uni study got a lot of coverage. 

I remind you of all this (yet again), because I'm going to do what such reports don't do. I'm going to dump all the raw material I intend to use to analyse the BBC's coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict (over a three-week period) in the post directly below this one. 

I wanted to record it all just in case the likes of Greg Philo, Mike Berry or the Media Lens/Electronic Intifada crowd start producing literally incredible stats and claims about the BBC's coverage - and because they should not be allowed to have all the raw material at their fingertips.

Make no mistake about it, they will be doing something similar - except that they won't publish the raw material either in advance or on publication, merely present their results and the conclusions they draw from it. I hate it when people do that. 

Similarly, the BBC will be doing something similar - and they won't be publishing any of it (even if you go after them through FoI requests).

What you'll see here is a regular sampling of BBC news bulletins from 7th July-27 July (inclusive), transcribing every Israel-Gaza-related report in full from four bulletins at specific times each day (84 bulletins in all).

While I'm analysing it over the coming weeks, you might want to do your own analysis and think of ways of assessing whether it shows bias or not. What questions should be looked at? What would prove (or disprove) bias?

Initial ideas might be: How many quote Israeli sources, how many Palestinian sources? How many cite casualty figures from 'health officials in Gaza'? How many mention 'human shields'? How many come from Israel, how many from Gaza?

Anyone may feel free to use anything they like from the post below. 

Biasless in Gaza, at the BBC with Roger Bolton?

This week's Feedback dealt with the issue of BBC bias over the latest Israel-Palestinian conflict. 

First came two listeners from one side of the argument:

My name's Jean Fitzpatrick and I live in London. I wish the BBC would give more time to hear the Palestinian voice, the Palestinian side, so it's not so much that it's only about Israel but we don't hear the Palestinian voice, the Palestinian situation.

My name's Jenny Hardacre. I'm calling from Cambridge. The current coverage, I think it is very one-sided. I don't think they present the Palestinian perspective at all and they don't give enough information about the historical context. I don't think it's only biased. I think they censor the Palestinian viewpoint. 

Roger Bolton then said that the programme had received "a similar number" of complaints from the other side:

My name's Mitch Hansen. I can't help feeling that the BBC's reporting of the Israel-Hamas conflict is rather skewed in favour of those living in Gaza. The emphasis appears to be on how terrible it is from Gaza to be subject to bombardment by Israeli forces while very little is said about how terrible it is for Israelis to live in constant fear of rocket attacks originating from the territory.

My name is Molly Cooper. How is it that there was no mention of rockets fired on Israel until the IDF began to bomb terrorist targets? It's true I'm elderly but I do look back with nostalgia to the days when the BBC could relied on as being more objective, dispassionate in its reporting.

The senior BBC editor who responded to these complaints - Andrew Roy, World Editor of BBC News - made the familiar case that this shows that the BBC is getting it right. [I thought of transcribing his response, but you really don't need a transcript to guess what he said, so it would have been a waste of time.]

What I would have done, if I were in his position, is to cite whatever evidence I had - especially statistical evidence - to back up my claims that the BBC has been impartial thoughout, but that's something BBC editors never seem to do on programme's like Feedback or Newswatch.

Others, however, do, and the BBC should be prepared for them.

You may have missed Roger Bolton's blog post on this very issue:

I nearly fell out of bed on Tuesday morning. It was around 8.40 am and I should have been up anyway, but I had only gone back to bed an hour before.
I find sleeping difficult when the sun rises early, so I had been up since dawn working on an obsessive local history project before popping back for a quick nap.
Of course the Today programme was on in the background. It has the peculiar property of being able to send me to sleep and sometimes wake me up. This time it was the latter. A voice from the turbulent past.
I had last heard of Professor Greg Philo in the early 1980s when his Glasgow media Group analysed the Corporation’s coverage of the Miners’ Strike and found it wanting. I was a BBC programme Editor at the time and, although I did not agree with much that he wrote, I was impressed and challenged by his analysis, which certainly made me think, and was a valuable corrective to the parliamentary consensus.
On Today on Tuesday he was also in challenging mode, alleging that the Beeb’s coverage of the conflict in Gaza was pro-Israel. Many Feedback listeners agree with him, and almost as many disagree.
It was refreshing to hear his views, and I look forward to the publication of his detailed analysis, and that of those who allege the opposite. I also hope voices like his will be heard more regularly. Broadcasters need to be challenged. That’s what Feedback is all about.

Roger Bolton is complimentary about Greg Philo there and says he awaits his detailed analysis of the BBC's coverage. 

I, on the other hand, would be much more inclined to be sceptical about any detailed analysis that comes from so biased a source as Greg Philo, especially in light of what he asserted to Mishal Husain on Today last week:

Well, the Palestinian perspective is just not there. The Israelis are on twice as much.

Will his 'research' prove that? 

Well, here's some proper research (if I say so myself) - a complete list of all the people interviewed in set-piece interviews on five of the BBC's main current affairs programmes up until Friday morning [I would have gone further but the BBC iPlayer has been down this weekend].

It is free for you to examine. 

Does it show that "the Israelis are on twice as much"? Please do your own analysis and draw your own conclusions:

WORLD TONIGHT 30th June

Danny Danon, Israeli Deputy Defence Minster 

NEWSNIGHT 30th June

Daniel Taub, Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom

Mustafa Bargouti, Palestinian National Initiative Party

TODAY 1st July

Ron Dermer, Israeli Ambassador to the United States

Mustafa Barghouti, Palestinian National Initiative Party

WORLD AT ONE 1st July

Israa al-Mudallal, Palestinian foreign affairs spokeswoman

Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, IDF spokesman

Daniel Levy, European Council on Foreign Relations

NEWSNIGHT 1st July

Avi Sharit, Ha'aretz

TODAY 2nd July

Oliver McTernan, Forward Thinking 

Dani Dayan, Yesha Council

WORLD TONIGHT 2nd July

Husam Zomlot of Fatah's Foreign Relations Committee

TODAY 3rd July

Dr Abdullah Abdullah, chairman of the Political Committee of the Palestinian Legislative Council

Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli PM

WORLD TONIGHT 3rd July

Chris Gunness, UNRWA Spokesman

Giora Eiland, former head of the Israeli National Security Council

WORLD TONIGHT 4th July

Gideon Remez, Harry Truman Institute at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem

Mouin Rabbani, senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies

NEWSNIGHT 4th July

Osama Hamdan, Foreign Affairs spokesman, Hamas

TODAY 7th July

Mark Regev, Israeli government spokesman

WORLD TONIGHT 7th July

Avi Sharit, Ha'aretz

TODAY 8th July

Brig. Gen. Michael Herzog, former chief of staff in the Israeli Defence Ministry

WORLD AT ONE 8th July

Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, spokesman for the Israeli Defence Force

Osama Hamdan, Hamas spokesman

WORLD TONIGHT 8th July 

Sheera Frenkel, BuzzFeed's Middle East correspondent

TODAY 9th July

Raji Sourani, head of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights

Daniel Taub, Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom

WORLD TONIGHT 9th July

Osama Hamdan, spokesman for Hamas

Retired Brig Gen Michael Herzog, former Israel negotiator

Jen Psaki, spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department

TODAY 10th July

Fawaz Gerges, LSE

NEWSNIGHT 10th July

Dr Yuval Steinitz, Israeli Intelligence Minister

TODAY 11th July

Adele Raemer from Kibbutz Nirim, Israel

WORLD AT ONE 11th July

Hussein Agha, senior associate member of St Antony's College, Oxford, former Palestinian negotiator

PM 11th July

Aaron David Miller, former U.S. Middle East envoy

WORLD TONIGHT 11th July

Dennis Ross, former U.S. to the Middle East

Nancy Soderberg, former U.S. National Security Advisor

TODAY 12th July

Jacob Perry, Israeli Minister of Science

Prof. Manuel Hassassian,  Palestinian Authority's diplomatic representative to the United Kingdom

TODAY 14th July 

Dennis Ross, former U.S. diplomat

WORLD AT ONE 14th July

David Waltzer, Israel's ambassador to the EU

Leila Shahid, Palestinian Authority Ambassador to the EU

WORLD TONIGHT 15th July

Nathan Thrall, Middle East analyst for the International Crisis Group

TODAY 16th July 

Isaac Herzog, leader of the Israeli Labor Party

Greg Philo, Glasgow University

Jonathan Freedland, the Guardian/Jewish Chronicle

WORLD TONIGHT 16th July

Sara Hussein, Middle East correspondent, AFP

Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, IDF spokesman

TODAY 17th July

Chris Gunness, UNRWA Spokesman

PM 17th July

Lord Levy, Tony Blair's Middle East envoy

NEWSNIGHT 17th July

Dr Mkhaimar Abusada, political scientist, Gaza

Daniel Taub, Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom

TODAY 18th July

Daniel Taub, Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom

Mustafa Bargouti, Palestinian National Initiative Party

Greg Philo is talking out of his rear end, isn't he?

Londonistan

The subject of “the BBC’s bias towards Israel” was brought to us on the Today programme yesterday because it was thought very odd that the BBC failed to report the noisy protest outside its own building the previous day. (2:38 mins in.)

In the parallel world that Craig alluded to in his recent post, that omission could be yet another indication of the BBC’s bias towards Israel. The real reason is probably because the BBC doesn’t think it has any kind of bias, so its nonexistent bias is not a subject it would wish to include in news bulletins. 

However, they might mention it if one of the protesters was killed during it. Looking at the footage on Daphne Anson’s  website, that possibility isn’t as far-fetched as it might at first appear. The mindless chanting, the reckless posturing on the roofs of vehicles, the pent up fury and the menacing attack on a Jewish lady passer-by.  Well, this is what the politicians have lumbered us with, and this is what “up with we must put”. 

Greg Philo is “Professor of communications and social change” at Glasgow University.

(What’s happened to university professorship? The standards have plunged down a deep dark precipice along with British values, Woolworths and the BBC) He sounds uncannily like Ken Livingstone. Maybe he is Ken Livingstone?

Greg Philo has a massive axe to grind. He co-wrote a book about propaganda. Not just any old propaganda. Purportedly about Zionist propaganda, it seems the book was itself a rabidly anti-Zionist diatribe. I haven’t read it myself, but the excerpts from it, which many Israel-bashers cite to bolster their arguments indicate that he is not a reliable judge of what constitutes impartiality. He wouldn’t know impartiality if it was delivered to him by direct hit with a M-75 rocket.

I have no idea why Professor Philo has taken up with this particular cause. For some reason he identifies with the Islamist terrorists Hamas and accepts their justification for using violence to ‘resist the Jews’. 

I do hope he gets his wish that the BBC agrees to broadcast debates on what he calls the “historical analysis of events”. If they were able to procure a legitimate panel of bona fide historians for this purpose, professor Philo’s woefully skewed interpretation of ‘history’ would certainly be shown up for the dumbed-down ahistorical nonsense that it is. 

In order to clarify exactly what Professor Philo was defending, I recommend a visit to Daphne Anson’s and Edgar Davidson’s websites, and though I hate to do it, I'm posting this video,

For posterity, I’ve transcribed the interview with Mishal Husain. I’ve left out the interruptions because they’re un-transcribable, but suffice it to say they all emanate from the professor. 

(Mishal Husain’s debut  was memorable for her infamous Jeremy Paxman moment last time round, when she harangued Gil Hoffman with the “How many Israelis have died” question, repeated over and over merely to elicit the answer  - none -  presumably to illustrate that the Israelis had no business responding to the rocket attacks, which she ended up famously describing as ‘homemade contraptions’.  She acquired a bit of a reputation, which I suspect she is keen to  shake off, as in this interview she appeared relatively even-handed, apart from when she said “That’s a serious allegation you make” which, surprisingly turned out to be a reference to the BBC’s coverage and not the actual serious allegation: “Israel is a brutal apartheid state”)

*************

MH:

Greg Philo, are the protesters right? Have we been biased at the BBC in favour of Israel?

GP:

I think the protesters are doing the BBC a favour. I think they will help the  journalists to give a better perspective. I have had senior journalists at the BBC many times saying they cannot get the Palestinian viewpoint across, that the perspective they can’t say, which  is the Palestinian view which is that Israel is a brutal apartheid state.

MH:

Right. That’s a serious allegation you make  about the coverage. I mean you have sat down and watched many hours, haven’t you, of news. As you watch that news coverage of the BBC and other broadcasters, what is the full picture you would say you get of coverage of the conflict?

GP:

Well the Palestinian perspective is just not there. The Israelis are on twice as much, the Palestinian view, and the historical analysis of the events is that they were displaced from their land and are living under military rule. If you go out to focus groups here people do not even understand that it’s a military occupation that the Palestinians are subject to. They don’t know about the economic blockade. They don’t know about the consequences of that in Palestinian life. Palestinians live as they see it under..

MH:

Two different points there. One is about the amount of airtime that both sides get and one is about the bigger picture, the context. Well we do, we do have many reporters inside Gaza, notably Jeremy Bowen the Middle East editor, he’s been reporting on civilian casualties, reporting on the morgue.

GP:

Yes but the issue is the roots of the conflict - the problem with the coverage is that it doesn’t refer to the history of it, that the Palestinians are a displaced people that they were forced to flee from Israel, that they lost their homes and lands, that, that the occupation and the way it’s conducted is illegal, that they lose their water, that they have their, their lives in effect stolen from them. Even if the BBC can’t give the Palestinian view it should at least respect international law. They should at least.... just let me finish that point,,,, the BBC should at least be saying, reporting the international judgments on things like the wall and.....

MH:

Jonathan Freedland, is there a lack of a longer term perspective and  acknowledgement of the past history of this conflict as well as the present?

JF:

I’m sure your correspondents Jeremy Bowen and others would say that  it’s impossible in a 60 second report give the history of what is, at the minimum a hundred and twenty year plus conflict. It’s difficult for them to do that in every dispatch. I wouldn’t tell.. (unintelligible)  ...but the thing I couldn’t help notice is that the criticisms we’ve just heard there would be made and are made in exactly the same kind of detail on the other side of the argument.

So you mentioned that i write a monthly column for the Jewish Chronicle. Jewish Chronicle readers will denounce the BBC for failing to give the history that explains the Jewish people’s historic need to have a homeland of their own, for their long period of exile leading to the return to Israel. They would say exactly the same things and they would be incensed by what you say

GP:

I say rather more critical things than that Jonathan,.....

JF:

Sure....both sides......

GP:

The best coverage has come from Haaretz! If you look at Gideon Levy’s piece....

JF:

But but.....could I finish.....

MH:

Greg Philo, just let Jonathan Freedland finish....

JF:

We’ve heard a lot from you and of course I’m an admirer of the Haaretz newspaper in Israel too, but they’re in a different position because here the BBC is explaining to an audience outside the region what’s going on, but you know Greg Philo mentioned there’s no reference to the occupation etc. pro-Israel  get upset - that it’s described your own correspondents are doing it now, as illegal settlements - they always describe it as occupied east Jerusalem I think that’s fine , that’s accurate but it’s wrong to say the occupation is not acknowledged.....

....can I just finish..

MH:

Just wait for a second I’ll come back to you...

JF:

...a bit of equal time. i think the argument is, the difference this time, it’s true that the BBC was under huge assault last time from pro Israel people much less than from people who are anti-Israel, this time it’s different I think because people feel that this time the BBC is acknowledging that even though the death toll is very lopsided in the current conflict, no-one can deny that - and I think there is the understanding that despite that there is a mutual exchange of fire going on here, Hamas is firing rockets, Israel is doing airstrikes, that has been absorbed into the coverage in a way that I think perhaps was missing last time.

MH:

Greg Philo I wonder if you thing, if you would agree that there has been a change then, since the last time we reported Israeli military action on Gaza. Of course the media landscape has changed, social media is a force to be reckoned with.

GP:

I think it’s pretty much a carbon copy of what we found last time, to be honest as far as I can see what bothers me really is that unless there is a proper discussion of the root causes of this, unless the politicians are made to confront the history of this and to talk seriously about the conditions under which the Palestinians have been reduced, unless they understand and are forced to confront the history of it, the displacement of a a people, people who in the words of a BBC, a senior BBC journalist said to me we cannot get across the view that the Palestinians are a displaced people who are fighting to overthrow what they see as a brutal military rule.

MH:

Yes, well...

GP:

We can’t get that across....

MH:

Yes, you made that, you made that particular point already i....

GP:

Without that how can you have a proper debate...

MH:

The statement that the BBC has given us says that we report widely on different aspects of this ongoing  and complex conflict; our role is to explain what is happening and why, and we endeavour to reflect a range of voices amid deeply held views. Thank you both.

Meanwhile, in a parallel universe nearby...

There's been a demo against BBC bias. 

The Graun, the Indie and the Indie-owned Evening Standard have all reported it, though no one beyond these left-wing/local papers seems to have bothered with it. 

It was staged by a few hundred noisy anti-Israeli activists (or, if you're credulous enough to believe the figures posted on social media, a few hundreds more). 

This morning's Today (about a quarter of an hour before the end) dealt with the protests by inviting on one of the protest's supporters - Glasgow-based far-left media activist/academic, Greg Philo - and putting him up against the Guardian's soft-left Jonathan Freedland. 

Greg Philo is strongly anti-Israel, while Jonathan Freedland is a friendly critic of Israel. Greg Philo thinks the BBC is biased towards Israel, Jonathan Freedland doesn't think it's biased at all. 

Such was the strange set-up to this morning's discussion. 

You will note the absence of anyone who thinks that the BBC is biased against Israel, which (I would suspect) is the more widespread opinion (though not the noisiest one). 

Greg Philo has previously 'proved' that the BBC is pro-Israel. He's the author of books on the subject with fellow far-left academic Mike Berry - the main spokesman for that BBC-funded Cardiff University report which 'proved' that the BBC is right-wing, anti-Europe, pro-business, anti-immigration and anti-Muslim. 

On this morning's Today he made the bold statement that pro-Israeli speakers outnumber pro-Palestinian ones by 2:1 on the BBC. 

My recent study proves that to be complete b*llocks - and it's free to read and completely transparent, should you wish to check it out. 

For an academic, Greg Philo came across as being far more concerned to spout anti-Israel rhetoric than to provide a cogent case in support of his claims of BBC bias. His activist side was showing. So much so that he sounded rather deranged at times, trying to talk over Jonathan Freedland, clearly in order to dominate and stifle the debate. (Quite the Zhdanov, our Greg!)

Jonathan Freeland, in contrast, was all meekness and mildness, merely pointing out that others (pro-Israelis) think the BBC is biased in the other direction. He himself didn't seem to share that opinion, but at least he pointed it out on Radio 4. 

Mishal Husain, doing the interviewing, was clearly not happy with Greg Philo, giving him as good as he gave when it came to interrupting other people. BBC interviewers hate the BBC being accused of bias on their watch.

She quoted Jeremy Bowen's mortuary reports at him as proof that the BBC is doing the sort of thing he wants (which - just possibly - suggests that she knows as well as we do just how biased against Israel  Jeremy Bowen really is).

Mishal ended by reading out a BBC statement saying they'd got it about right, and then ended the discussion, very firmly.

A strange listening experience all round.