By Anthony Lawson

11 September 2010

Documentary maker Anthony Lawson argues, in a 15-minute video critique of BBC Panorama's 'Death on the Med', that the BBC's "biased and often untruthful treatment of Israel's worst atrocity since Operation Cast Lead should trigger a public enquiry about who is really in charge of one of the most influential broadcasters on the planet".

Whatever happened on the Mavi Marmara on the morning of 31 May  2010, the BBC's Panorama team failed to give a balanced view of it in its so-called documentary, 'Death in the Med'. Even the title sounds more like that of a paperback mystery, rather than a serious analysis of Israel's worst atrocity since Operation Cast Lead. 

Documentaries should be truthful and informative and expand our understanding of situations and events; their content should be rigorously checked for errors in statements which are presented as facts and conjecture, and the personal opinions of their writers and presenters should be explicitly identified as such. But 'Death in the Med' failed any test based on those parameters. 



The BBC's television and radio services reach an audience measured in hundreds of millions, worldwide, but are primarily funded by taxes and licence fees paid by the British public; not by Israel or its influential friends. The BBC's biased and often untruthful treatment of Israel's worst atrocity since Operation Cast Lead should trigger a public enquiry about who is really in charge of one of the most influential broadcaster's on the planet.
 

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