After more than 12 weeks deliberation, Ofcom have this week announced that they will not be investigating the BBC's controversial Panorama edition on antisemitism in the Labour Party. Broadcast five months ahead of last December's general election, the programme was the third Panorama edition in four years focused on, and wholly critical of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of … [Read more...]
BBC Panorama on anti-semitism: a catalogue of reporting failures
The BBC transmitted an edition of Panorama on 10 July called ‘Is Labour Anti-Semitic?’, presented by John Ware. It contained allegations that senior Labour figures close to Jeremy Corbyn had interfered with the internal investigations process and that the Party was insufficiently committed to tackling anti-semitism within its own ranks. In response, the Labour … [Read more...]
An open letter to the Guardian Reader’s Editor
Both before and since publishing our research, which raised serious concerns about the Guardian's coverage of antisemitism within the Labour Party, we have made strident efforts to engage in constructive dialogue with both editorial and public affairs staff. Unfortunately, these efforts do not appear to have borne any fruit to date. There has also been no reporting or … [Read more...]
New MRC research finds inaccuracies and distortions in media coverage of antisemitism and the Labour Party
The Media Reform Coalition has conducted in-depth research on the controversy surrounding antisemitism in the Labour Party, focusing on media coverage of the crisis during the summer of 2018. Following extensive case study research, we identified myriad inaccuracies and distortions in online and television news including marked skews in sourcing, omission of essential context … [Read more...]
MRC calls out misleading coverage and malicious attacks on left-wing Jewish voices across the national media
The Media Reform Coalition condemns the distorted and skewed coverage of anti-semitism within the Labour Party by large sections of the UK media. To give one recent example of the countless inaccuracies and misleading statements made by the ‘serious’ press, the Sunday Times has claimed to have exposed a ‘hate factory’ targeting Jews on closed Facebook groups that support Jeremy … [Read more...]