When the White House uses a press briefing to lambast a foreign broadcaster by name, something seismic has shifted. That’s exactly what happened today when Donald Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, publicly accused the BBC of treating ‘the word of Hamas as total truth’ and challenged the White House’s description of the broadcaster rushing out anti-Israel claims only to later bury the corrections.
Holding up printouts of BBC headlines that morphed from ’26 dead after Israeli tanks open fire’ to ’31 killed in Israeli gunfire,’ then ‘Red Cross says at least 21 killed’, before publishing another piece admitting ‘claim graphic video is linked to aid distribution site in Gaza is incorrect’, she put the world’s most recognisable public broadcaster on notice: ‘We’re going to look into reports before we confirm them,’ she said, ‘and I suggest that journalists who actually care about truth do the same.’
When it comes to Jews and Israel, the BBC’s failures have become not just frequent but predictable
This was a blistering callout of a problem that has been festering for decades.
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