The Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) is working on a new set of guidelines to help it weed out the bias from sources such as B’Tselem.

The initiative is the result of a request by the President of Israel Media Watch and former Minister of Public Security, Dr. Uzi Landau. In a letter to IBA Chairman Moshe Gavish, Landau asked a series of questions based on research showing that B’Tselem – a left-wing human rights organization – generally releases one-sided and sometimes deceptive information.

“Does the IBA deeply check the veracity of B’Tselem reports before they are broadcast?” Landau asked.  “Why does the IBA not note when reporting on B’Tselem that it has a very clear political and ideological agenda?  Is the IBA aware that it has become a propaganda tool in the hands of an organization that wishes to advance its own controversial ideology, without great concern for accuracy? Is the IBA aware that by its very publication of B’Tselem reports, it is hurting its own reputation for truthfulness?”

Guidelines Being Composed Right Now
In his response to Landau, Gavish acknowledged that despite the importance of this matter, it has not yet been dealt with.  Gavish wrote that a new set of guidelines is in fact currently being composed, and its principles are already being brought to editors’ attention. 

Gavish included in his letter the protocol of a recent top-level IBA meeting, in which took part IBA Director Moti Shklar, Ethics Committee Chairman Yuval Karniel, Television Committee Chairman Yaakov Shoham, and others.  Material submitted by Israel Media Watch regarding B’Tselem was discussed.

The participants agreed that it is their obligation to check the data of B’Tselem, and similar organizations, before publicizing it.  However, they said, it is impossible to do so in an absolute manner.  It was therefore decided that, when a given report causes harm to a third party, that “aggrieved party” must be afforded an opportunity to have its response publicized during the report in question.

It was also resolved that before recycling the report in subsequent news broadcasts, deeper checks of the data must be conducted.

JCPA vs. B'Tselem
The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs published a report in October showing that B’Tselem had reported exaggerated and inaccurate numbers of dead Palestinian civilians in clashes with Israeli troops.

Yonatan D. HaLevy, author of the report, wrote that Israel’s security network “barely does anything to combat its enemies who are trying to rule the message and the data that are fed to the news outlets and to create the ‘historical truth.’”