The BBC’s now in a death loop: it grows ever more craven to the billionaires, shifting the political centre of gravity further rightwards, even as the billionaire-owned media claim it’s too ‘leftwing’
The BBC is currently engulfed in crisis, with its director-general and head of news stepping down following the leak of a memo to the Daily Telegraph that exposed editorial misconduct on the flagship news show Panorama. The programme had edited together two distinct clips of Donald Trump from 6 January 2021, shortly before the Capitol insurrection. While the general message of Trump’s speech was not grossly distorted, the actual content was manipulated.
Yet, Panorama and the BBC at large have disseminated far more serious misinformation in the past, cases where no disciplinary action has been taken despite blatant breaches of journalistic ethics.
The recent resignations weren’t triggered merely by an error in reporting—those occur frequently. Instead, the BBC stumbled by handing a clear advantage to billionaire-backed right-wing media. This incident is just one damaging episode in a longstanding campaign by the right to undermine the BBC while simultaneously ensuring it becomes ever more submissive to their agenda.
We are trapped in a vicious cycle where the BBC’s increasing subservience to wealthy elites pulls the political spectrum further right. The billionaire-owned press has persuaded much of the British public that the BBC leans left, which emboldens the right to promote their interests unchecked.
British politics mirrors this cycle, as Keir Starmer’s trajectory clearly demonstrates. Regardless of leadership, billionaires hold control. The main contest revolves around managing public hostility: where and towards whom it is directed.
Starmer, embracing austerity and open-market policies, encourages targeting critics from the left, including those opposed to his backing of Israel’s genocidal actions. Meanwhile, Nigel Farage similarly directs resentment primarily at immigrants. Yet, both figures share disdain for the left and migrants alike.
For those getting caught up in the orchestrated outrage over Panorama’s recent misstep, it’s vital to recall much graver editorial misconduct by the programme—especially regarding Israel and Palestine—that largely escaped consequence once uncovered.
Why is that? Because the billionaire class ardently supports Israel and detests its detractors. They see Israel as their future ideal: a fortified state safeguarding elites from the populations devastated by their global actions.
Moreover, Israel serves as a testing ground for cutting-edge surveillance, weaponry, and law enforcement tactics that will be implemented domestically to suppress dissent as austerity deepens. The realities of Gaza may soon resemble conditions elsewhere.
Below are two prominent examples of Panorama’s journalistic offenses demonstrating the impunity granted when billionaire interests are protected.
The first episode provided Israel with exculpatory cover for atrocities committed against peace activists bringing aid to Gaza in 2010, laying the groundwork for subsequent coverage that rationalised the Gaza genocide.
The second used falsehoods to cement Jeremy Corbyn’s image as an “antisemite” just before the 2019 general election. Starmer later exploited this manufactured controversy to take charge of Labour, oust Corbyn, endorse Israel’s blockade of Gaza as leader of the opposition, and support its genocide as prime minister.
Death in the Med (2010)
Jane Corbin led Panorama’s 2010 documentary, “Death in the Med,” recounting an Israeli commando assault months earlier on the Mavi Marmara, the lead vessel in a humanitarian flotilla attempting to reach Gaza despite an illegal Israeli blockade.
(This programme underlines that the so-called “conflict” between Israel and Hamas did not start on 7 October 2023, as Western media claim. For 17 preceding years, Israel confined Gaza’s population within a small enclave while cutting off vital food and medical supplies—described by Israel as “putting them on a diet.”)
In international waters, commandos raided the ship, killing nine activists, many with close-range headshots. Panorama omitted any mention of the illegality of this incursion or the execution-style killings. Instead, it presented exclusive interviews with some commandos, portraying them as victims.
Israel had absurdly accused the activists of al-Qaeda ties. Its main justification rested on footage Israel produced purporting to show commandos being attacked first, not the reverse. Israel also released alleged radio communications where an activist supposedly told commandos, shortly before the raid, to “Go back to Auschwitz,” which Corbin described as a “warning sign.”
Panorama neglected to mention that Israel had confiscated all media devices from journalists and activists aboard the Marmara. The activists were deported to Israel and detained incommunicado for several days. Israel’s aim was clear: maintaining exclusive control over the narrative during the media storm.
Early warnings from Israel’s Foreign Press Association highlighted how the Israeli military selectively edited footage to support its claims that commandos fired only after being attacked. The Committee to Protect Journalists also condemned Israel’s manipulation and circulation of the seized recordings.
By Panorama’s airing, three months after the event, Israel had been forced to admit to a “correction,” acknowledging it doctored the inflammatory “Auschwitz” audio and couldn’t identify the speaker, who spoke with a strong southern US accent—no one on the Marmara with radio access matched that profile.
Remarkably, the programme framed the issue as whether Israel’s use of force was “self-defence or excessive.” Israel had no legal right to defend itself in international waters against unarmed aid workers, and the question was especially absurd given the ample evidence Panorama ignored.
Instead, Corbin followed Israeli commandos on a “training operation” and conducted enthusiastic interviews with some participants in the Marmara raid. Her introduction reveals the programme’s slant:
They called it Operation Sea Breeze, but what these Israeli naval commandos encountered on the Mavi Marmara was anything but a breeze. It caused a storm of international condemnation. But did Israel fall into a trap, and what was the real agenda of some of those people who call themselves peace activists?
This tactic—a hallmark of BBC journalism on Israel—is to suggest multiple possibilities while actually pushing only one narrative: one sympathetic to Israel. Panorama proposed that either Israeli commandos were duped into a “trap” perhaps set by violent peace activists or that the peace activists were not peaceful at all but incited violence.
In reality, Panorama aided Israel in justifying an act of maritime piracy, the Gaza blockade, and the killing of nine humanitarian defenders.
Is Labour Antisemitic? (2019)
Shortly before the 2019 general election, Panorama released a special hour-long episode examining Labour under Jeremy Corbyn. The question mark in the title was rhetorical; the show aimed to demonstrate Labour’s alleged antisemitism regardless of factual accuracy.
Corbyn, the first major British political leader to prioritize Palestinians’ rights over Israel’s illegal occupation, had faced persistent media attacks since becoming leader in 2015. The press insisted he tolerated or encouraged a so-called “plague of antisemitism” among party members.
To those paying close attention, these charges appeared convenient, reflecting establishment anxiety over the possibility that a socialist committed to major wealth redistribution might become prime minister.
Now, the purpose behind these antisemitism accusations is clearer. Millions protesting the Gaza genocide have been branded antisemites. This defamation has extended to student activists challenging university complicity, Jewish critics of Israel’s genocide, and the West Midlands police for attempting to prevent violence from Israeli football hooligans, likely including Israeli soldiers involved in genocide. And this list goes on.
Panorama’s Corbyn episode relied on numerous distortions—too many to cover here. A comprehensive critique can be found in this documentary here.
Among these was a series of interviews with anonymous “party members” reporting antisemitism within Labour. What Panorama failed to reveal was that most of these individuals belonged to the fiercely pro-Israel Jewish Labour Movement (JLM).
By the time the episode aired, undercover Al-Jazeera footage had already exposed key JLM leaders, including Ella Rose—featured extensively in Panorama—collaborating with the Israeli embassy to remove Corbyn as Labour leader. Panorama omitted this crucial context entirely.
The BBC also neglected to interview numerous Jewish Labour members, many affiliated with Jewish Voice for Labour, who contested the JLM’s antisemitism claims. These pro-Corbyn Jews—branded by the media as the “wrong kind of Jews”—viewed the JLM as an anti-Corbyn entryist faction.
Additional journalistic failings included a Seumas Milne email that Panorama misleadingly edited to suggest improper interference in disciplinary hearings protecting antisemites, echoing tactics reminiscent of the Trump episode.
An interview with JLM member Izzy Lenga was also deceptively edited to imply she endured horrific antisemitic abuse within Labour, including claims that “Hitler was right.”
In fact, as shown in the Al-Jazeera exposé, the comments Lenga referenced occurred four years earlier at university, unrelated to Labour. Back then, she told the Daily Mail about neo-Nazis posting “Hitler is right” flyers on campus.
The BBC issued a minor correction three years later—hidden away on the corrections page—and largely unnoticed, coming far too late to mitigate the damage to Corbyn’s reputation.
Significantly, Lenga’s unedited remarks, cited in the correction, prove Panorama’s editors were fully aware of the truth. Their manipulation misleadingly portrayed Labour as institutionally antisemitic just weeks before a general election.
Similarly, Panorama distorted an interview with two pro-Corbyn Labour members in Liverpool under investigation for antisemitism, omitting the fact that both women were Jewish—a detail that would have seriously undermined the documentary’s premise.
The programme instead focused heavily on the interviewer, Ben Westerman, who is Jewish. Westerman claimed the women had subjected him to antisemitic remarks like “Where are you from? Are you from Israel?”
He said to Panorama: “What can you say to that? You are assumed to be in cahoots with the Israeli government. It’s this obsession with the fact.. that it spills over all the time into antisemitism.”
However, the Al-Jazeera investigation revealed the interview was recorded with Westerman’s consent, and the tape contains no such comments. At one point, Rica Bird asks: “I’m just curious because I haven’t been in the Labour party very long, and I’ve certainly never been to anything like this informal interview before. So I’m just curious about, like, what branch are you in?”
As the BBC’s flagship investigative programme with considerable resources and time, Panorama had ample opportunity to verify Westerman’s serious allegations directly with the women, who were entitled to respond. Their Jewish identity made his accusations even less credible.
Had basic fact-checking occurred—standard practice even for journalism students—Panorama’s team would have known about the recording, which clearly exposes Westerman’s falsehoods.
Such fundamental vetting was ignored in both “Death in the Med” and “Is Labour Antisemitic?” because Panorama’s leadership understood no authority would hold them accountable. Defaming peace activists aiding Gaza or smearing a socialist candidate posed no threat to those in power.
Why? Because these aren’t errors by the BBC. They are the organisation’s function. Its founding figure, Lord Reith, explained in the 1920s that “They [the government] know they can trust us not to be really impartial.” The BBC exists to uphold narratives favorable to the British establishment.
The scandal over editing Trump’s speech—modifying its content without misrepresenting its meaning—reflects a miscalculation by senior BBC staff. The establishment is itself divided, waging a strategic battle between the traditional right, trying to maintain a fading liberal consensus, and the MAGA far-right, eager to exploit its collapse for their gain.
This signals the far right’s ascendancy is so strong that it no longer faces the scrutiny typically applied to the left or Israel’s critics. Backed by billionaires, the far right is triumphant. It’s time for the BBC to adapt—by bending even more to their will.
Original article: jonathan-cook.net
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