When the BBC announced last week that Mishal Husain is leaving the corporation many colleagues rushed to express gushing and fulsome admiration for the longstanding presenter.
Yet manifestly absent from the tsunami of tributes was any mention of the controversy Husain has courted in her reporting of the war in Gaza.
The 51-year-old broadcaster has been repeatedly criticised for alleged lack of impartiality towards Israel.
Most recently, in an interview with the University of Tehran’s Mohammad Marandi – often referred to as Iran’s chief English-speaking propagandist – Husain barely interrupted as Marandi unleashed what historian Simon Sebag Montefiore called a “racist rant filled with ‘lies, libels, conspiracy theories, fake facts, antisemitic tropes and even distortion and misuse of Holocaust history”.
Did bosses take Husain off air pending an investigation into the interview which – given it had the authoritative stamp and global reach of the BBC – could only pour fuel on the fire of escalating Jew-hatred in the UK as well as the toxic demonisation of Israel? Absolutely not. Instead, it issued a statement weakly claiming, “we accept we should have continued to challenge [Marandi’s] language throughout the interview.”
It seems our national broadcaster is highly selective when it comes to calling behaviour to account of those in its stable who defile the corporation’s reputation and whose actions can have egregious consequences.In the face of mounting allegations of sexually inappropriate behaviour by MasterChef presenter Gregg Wallace the BBC has pulled the cookery show’s Christmas specials . (It should be said the presenter has denied all allegations and an independent law firm is investigating the complaints.) Given the nature and volume of the accusations, clearly the corporation felt decisive action needed to be taken.
Even if the festive editions of MasterChef, featuring celebrity guests, would have netted huge audiences. Clearly taking a strong position aces a star of Strictly doing something clever with brandy butter.
The show, it seems, mustn’t go on.
So why doesn’t the BBC show the same unflinching approach when it comes to reporters or presenters accused of bias during the Israel conflict? A situation most inexcusably demonstrated in relation to the seemingly untouchable international editor correspondent Jeremy Bowen.
When Bowen rushed to blame Israel for a missile strike on the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza – only for it be conclusively proven that the blast had been caused by a misfired rocket from Palestinian Islamic Jihad – he admitted he had been “wrong”, but added that he didn’t “regret one thing” about his reporting.
Did the BBC suspend him, publicly rebuke his actions or issue formal caution? Even though thanks to his misreporting Joe Biden’s trip to Jordan to meet a range of Arab leaders about the conflict was cancelled. Meanwhile, again given the authoritative rubber stamp of the BBC, Bowen’s original report would have been greedily embraced by those who are determined to peddle a distorted narrative about Israel – even though the country is fighting a war it didn’t want in response to attack by the genocidal Hamas. Instead the broadcaster offered weak regret, stating “it was wrong to speculate in this way about the possible causes and we apologise for this”.
So why do those who defy standards of fairness and accuracy in news output barely warrant a trip to the headmaster’s office while light entertainment gets a heavier deal?
To be clear, it shouldn’t and mustn’t be a case of either/or. There should be the same sure-footed response to all stars who confound the charter and make mockery of a service that we taxpayers fund. It is imperative that Gregg Wallace is investigated – those who allege to have been mistreated by him deserve profound sympathy and justice if such accusations are proven to be true.
Yet it is sickening at a time of spiralling anti-Semitism that the BBC makes a clear stand over allegations surrounding a cookery television presenter yet is prepared not to make an example of those like Bowen or Husain who have the potential to do immeasurable damage on a huge scale. Especially when set against repeated accusations of a wider anti-Israel bias and institutionalised anti-Semitism in the BBC. The recent Asserson report found the BBC breached its own editorial guidelines more than 1,500 times during its reporting of a war in Gaza (yet ironically Bowen called the meticulously prepared document deeply flawed).
Meanwhile, more than 200 people from the TV and film industry recently signed a letter to the BBC board calling for an urgent investigation into what it called “systemic problem of antisemitism and bias” at the corporation. And only this week according to a respected, highly placed whistle-blower inside the BBC, incidents of anti-Semitism are happening on a daily basis within the corporation and have become “normalised”
It pains me to criticise the BBC – it produces some peerless drama and has nurtured leading talents in all spheres of its output. But if it really wants to be respected it has to be fair and equivocal in calling to account those from across its output. Otherwise we’re left with the impression that on certain subjects views don’t count.
