Media bias

Here we mention instances of serious bias by established news media. This category doesn't naturally point you to recommended reading material, but it may serve to warn against being misled by

Media Bias Gaza 2023-24

(March 2024): A report by the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), Media Bias: Gaza 2023-24; the full report is here

Here is an article by Jonathan Cook, about media reporting of Gaza, including detail about the accuracy of media reporting of Hamas’ 7 October attack: How the Western media helped build the case for genocide in Gaza

BBC

I've seen more reported about the BBC than other media outlets. I don't know if that is because they are worse than the others, or just because we expect better of them. Anyway, here goes:

Here are some recent articles from Media Lens, Jonathan Cook, and others:

So here is an ever-increasing list of reasons to doubt the BBC's neutrality.

Batang Kali - the BBC in times past

This item doesn't really belong on this page, but it gives an example of the BBC in the past.

On 11 and 12 December 1948 a Scots Guards patrol murdered 24 unarmed civilians in the village of Batang Kali, in Selangor, Malaysia (then Malaya). And I'm not going to indulge in b/s like "allegedly", rather I quote Lord Kerr in the Supreme Court case Keyu & Ors v Secretary of State for ... [2015] UKSC 69, who says (par 204)

[the] shocking circumstances in which, according to the overwhelming preponderance of currently available evidence, wholly innocent men were mercilessly murdered and the failure of the authorities of this state to conduct an effective inquiry into their deaths

So what does the BBC have to do with this? Well, as recounted in the Supreme Court judgment,

So all this activity since 1992 seems to have been triggered by the BBC. I haven't seen anything to indicate what stimulated the BBC's interest then.

And, though a bit off-topic, the article Suella Braverman demands former colonies pay reparations to London, archived here, reminds me of something I read in connection with Batang Kali, the gist of which is here Britain’s forgotten war for rubber:

A Colonial Office report from 1950 noted that Malaya’s rubber and tin mining industries were the biggest earners in the British Commonwealth.
Malaya was described by one British Lord in 1952 as the “greatest material prize in South-East Asia”, mainly due to its rubber and tin. These resources were “very fortunate” for Britain, another Lord declared, since “they have very largely supported the standard of living of the people of this country and the sterling area ever since the war ended”.

More of what the BBC has done in the past

The British Post Office scandal was brought to public attention largely through the efforts of Nick Wallis who was, at the beginning of this story, was a presenter on BBC Radio Surrey, and made programmes on it for BBC Television's Panorama and presented the ten-part BBC Radio 4 series The Great Post Office Trial. Though his subsequent reporting on the big court case Bates & Others v Post Office Ltd, his book The Great Post Office Scandal, and his involvement in the 2024 television series, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, was after he had left the BBC. The story of Nick's involvement is here, Delivering justice for the sub-postmasters

Ironically (since I've put this section in as something positive about the BBC), Nick has recently written critically about the BBC's coverage of transgender issues.

The Guardian

This article, Discontent Deepens Among Guardian Staff Over Palestine ‘Double Standard’ discusses its topic at length, including the Guardian's rejection of an article by Susan Abulhawa, now available here, and she is interviewed here, and writes on the same theme here, and also at an Oxford Union debate

This article concerns an article which was "nixed" from the Guardian at the last minute. It is now available here, A Surge in Suppression, by Dylan Saba.

The Media generally

The Voice of Hind Rajab

In the article Genocide isn't a mistake. Which is why the media can't tell you the truth about Gaza, archived here, Jonathan Cook discussed the film The Voice of Hind Rajab, "a devastating dramatised retelling of Israel’s slow-motion murder of a five-year-old in Gaza", would not be touched by movie distributors in the USA.

UPDATE Jan 2026: Gaza war docudrama The Voice of Hind Rajab nominated for Academy Award

In that article, he also discusses his experience reporting on Israel for the Guardian.

See also I Heard “The Voice of Hind Rajab”, archived here

Likewise The Voice of Hind Rajab: The Film They Don’t Want You to See, archived here

I'm guessing that this is the movie which is referred to in this article, 11 Palestinians injured as Israeli forces raid Birzeit University in occupied West Bank, which suggests that the raid was to prevent a screening of the movie.

Karen Attiah

The Washington Post Fired Me — But My Voice Will Not Be Silenced, archived here

New York Times

Over 150 New York Times contributors to boycott paper over Gaza coverage, with more detail in this article, Former New York Times Writers Call Out The Paper For Spreading Zionist Propaganda, archived here. The letter is here, Genocide is not a matter of opinion

The Intercept - Glenn Greenwald

Something else from years ago - I was reminded of it only just now and realised that it belongs on this website: see his article My Resignation From The Intercept, archived here; the article in question is here, Article on Joe and Hunter Biden Censored By The Intercept, archived here

The Daily Telegraph (UK) - taken over by Springer

At The Telegraph, support for Israel is now mandatory, archived here

CBS News

Per this article, Bari Weiss Fires CBS Reporter For Questioning Her Zionist Propaganda, And Replaces Her With A Zionist Israeli., archived here, CBS News’s parent company, Paramount, was bought by Skydance, owned by David Ellison - then
Once Skydance bought CBS News, David Ellison installed Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief, a self-described “Zionist Fanatic” who has boasted that “my Zionist activism is connected to my journalism”.
and the article describes other staff changes.

Lord Robert Skidelsky

Writing about Ukraine, Four Years Later, archived here, he says
... some reflections of mine on the 4-year war in Ukraine. Interestingly enough, no one in the UK would publish it. It’s still taboo to argue that the West had any responsibility for either starting the war or continuing it at incredible human cost.