October 30, 2023:

Right now, Gaza is in total darkness. There are 8,306 reported killed with over 18,000 wounded, the majority of whom are civilians, of which 40% are children. These rapidly rising figures have been reliably reported by the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OHCA) – they do not include people still buried under the rubble and those unaccounted for.

The suffering has reached an unimaginable point of pain, where providing life-saving healthcare is no longer possible. Consequently, many of the wounded will soon succumb. Meanwhile, Israel's airstrikes and ground offensive continue to advance with the support of Western governments.

At this very moment, desperate journalists and civilians in Gaza are trying to share videos from attacked areas and hospitals. Severely injured individuals, without access to medicine or clean water, are crying out in pain. There have been countless images and videos depicting dead children and war victims crying out for help from the world outside. We are witnessing a healthcare system in total collapse. Are we meant to grasp the critical nature of the situation through social media alone?

We believe that the UK press has a daily duty to prioritise reporting on this barbaric reality. As per The Ofcom Broadcasting code section 5, which states:

To ensure that news, in whatever form, is reported with due accuracy and presented with due impartiality.

However, mainstream media is manufacturing consent for genocide in Gaza, broadcasting disinformation and anti-Palestinian sentiment. Examples include:

Sky News has used misleading language, referring to Israelis as having been ‘killed’ and Palestinians as having ‘died’.

At least 100 people have been killed by the Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank. This has garnered very little coverage in British media.

Sky News misrepresenting Palestinian Diplomat  Dr Zomlot’s views, when host Kay Burley quoted him as saying, ‘Israel had it coming’, when he had said no such thing in his interview.

The BBC reported ‘several demonstrations across Britain, during which people voiced their backing for Hamas’. They later made a feeble apology, admitting that the report was poorly phrased and a misleading description of the demos.

We consider today's inadequate reporting, in all major UK media outlets, to be a gross violation of the National Union of Journalists Code of Conduct.

In the worst case, if the media — in their passivity — fails to report, they may become complicit in a genocide. As outlined in the UK Lawyers’ Open Letter concerning Gaza, the media through selective coverage, omissions and lack of fact checking may be acting as accomplices of war crimes. 

While we wait for the UK Government to push for a ceasefire, condemn the Israeli occupation and the ongoing war crimes against the Palestinian people, we can no longer wait for the UK media to do their job. We demand that the press cover the actual war crimes and the humanitarian catastrophe we are witnessing in Gaza immediately.

 

Sources

Ofcom: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code/section-five-due-impartiality-accuracy

UK’s Lawyers Open Letter: https://lawyersletter.uk/​

https://www.counterfire.org/article/genocide-in-gaza-the-complicity-of-western-mainstream-media/