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On Wednesday this column noted the bizarre historical accident in the 1960s that led to America of all places, with our cherished First Amendment, somehow ending up with government-backed media. Lyndon Johnson performed so many great disservices to our country that public broadcasting often gets overlooked. Meanwhile over in the U.K., Britons have not been blessed with speech rights as robust as ours. Still, they too must wonder sometimes how their free society came to be saddled with a state-backed broadcaster. Such outlets are generally associated with brutal regimes, and unfortunately now the
one in London is too. This week the BBC’s Steven McIntosh admits: A BBC documentary about Gaza breached editorial guidelines on accuracy by failing to disclose the narrator was the son of a Hamas official, the corporation’s review has found. BBC director general Tim Davie commissioned the review into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, after it was pulled
from iPlayer in February when the boy’s family connections emerged… The BBC said the programme should not have been signed off, and it was taking appropriate action on accountability. In Mr. McIntosh’s extensive report this column had trouble spotting any appropriate action on accountability, but perhaps it’s in the eye of the beholder. The BBC report makes plain an anti-Israel pattern:
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