BBC CEO Deborah Turness published a personal column defending the organization as it faces criticism over the anti-Israel bias it has displayed following the Hamas massacre of over 1,400 Israelis on October 7.
Turness made the outrageous claim that while the BBC may make the occasional error in its reporting, the organization is the "most impartial UK news source."
"I could not be prouder of the BBC’s journalists and our journalism," she stated. "Over the past few days we have produced truly powerful coverage from inside Gaza, from Israel and from the wider region. Delivering our trusted journalism is vital, and never more so than now. This war is one of the most complex and polarising stories we have ever had to cover."
She said that she wrote the column "to take this opportunity to lay out transparently how we are listening to those who criticise our work, and how we are responding."
"We have faced criticism and complaints that we are biased both for and against Israel, and for and against the Palestinians. We cannot afford to simply say that if both sides are criticising us, we’re getting things right. That isn’t good enough for the BBC or for our audiences. At the BBC we hold ourselves to a higher standard and rightly challenge ourselves to listen to our critics and consider what changes to make where we think that criticism is fair," Turness wrote.
"The trust of our audiences must always be our priority - and it’s important that we listen to them. We are constantly monitoring audience feedback on our coverage of this war, and it tells us audiences think the BBC remains the most impartial UK news source. Internationally we have seen hundreds of millions of people come to BBC News for trusted information in a confusing and chaotic time."
Despite Turness' claims, the BBC has, as a policy, refused to refer to Hamas as a terrorist organization despite the violence it deliberately commits against civilians and has been extremely critical of Israel in the aftermath of the massacre of over a thousand of its citizens. The BBC was one of many news organizations that uncritically reported as fact the Hamas propaganda that Israel had killed 500 people in an airstrike on a hospital in Gaza, which was quickly proven to be false, as all evidence proved that the explosion occurred in the hospital parking lot, resulting in far fewer casualties than reported, and that the explosion was caused by an errant rocket that was misfired by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization.
On October 12, it was announced that BBC staff member Noah Abrahams was resigning in protest against the organization's slanted coverage of the Hamas-Israel war and the organization's refusal to call Hamas terrorists.
On Wednesday, British Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick told BBC director general Tim Davie that he had “never been so disappointed" and “I worry that the organization has lost the confidence of many people and in particular the British Jewish community. That loss of confidence began with the BBC’s refusal to call Hamas terrorists."