Sky, BBC Reject Gaza Charity Appeal

LONDON: Sky News and the BBC are both refusing to broadcast a fundraising appeal for people in the Gaza Strip, citing concerns about compromising their objectivity. 

Both broadcasters were approached about an appeal telecast by the Disaster Emergency Committee, an umbrella organization comprising charities such as the Red Cross, Oxfam and Save the Children. The DEC website notes that some 1,300 Palestinians have been killed in the current conflict. Launching the Gaza appeal, Brendan Gormley, the chief executive of DEC, stated: "DEC agencies have a humanitarian mandate. We are not proposing to attempt to rebuild Gaza—that is not our role. But with the public’s support we can help relieve short-term needs. Agencies are already providing food, drugs and blankets as well as delivering clean water."

Sky News and the BBC are concerned that if they broadcast the special, they run the risk of appearing biased. Jhn Ryley, the director of Sky News, is quoted as saying in the AP: "The conflict in Gaza forms part of one of the most challenging and contentious stories for any news organization to cover. Our commitment as journalists is to cover all sides of that story with uncompromising objectivity."

Mark Thompson, the BBC’s director-general, wrote a blog this weekend about the controversial decision. In it, he noted two reasons for the move: "One reason was a concern about whether aid raised by the appeal could actually be delivered on the ground. You will understand that one of the factors we have to look at is the practicality of the aid, which the public are being asked to fund, getting through….But there is a second more fundamental reason why we decided that we should not broadcast the appeal at present. This is because Gaza remains a major ongoing news story, in which humanitarian issues—the suffering and distress of civilians and combatants on both sides of the conflict, the debate about who is responsible for causing it and what should be done about it—are both at the heart of the story and contentious. We have and will continue to cover the human side of the conflict in Gaza extensively across our news services where we can place all of the issues in context in an objective and balanced way. After looking at all of the circumstances, and in particular after seeking advice from senior leaders in BBC Journalism, we concluded that we could not broadcast a free-standing appeal, no matter how carefully constructed, without running the risk of reducing public confidence in the BBC’s impartiality in its wider coverage of the story. Inevitably an appeal would use pictures which are the same or similar to those we would be using in our news programmes but would do so with the objective of encouraging public donations. The danger for the BBC is that this could be interpreted as taking a political stance on an ongoing story."

The pubcaster is said to have received more than 10,000 complaints about its decision.