Dr. Haran Shani-Narkiss, perhaps we can start with you explaining the connection between the research you led and published over a year ago, and the resignation of the BBC's Director General and Head of News last week?
Gladly. The memo by BBC's external advisor Michael Prescott, published last week, states that in July 2024, the BBC conducted an internal review and issued a report saying everything was fine with the network's conduct.
Prescott added that, still, some concerns arose regarding conduct. Why? Because the Asserson Report was published in September 2024, the research team I led, together with British-Israeli lawyer Trevor Asserson, who led the law team.
The report was published on the front page of the British Telegraph, made waves, and even reached the British Parliament. The BBC dismissed the report, and the matter seemed to pass, but the report illuminated dark corners that were simply waiting for the right moment.
Prescott, as a journalist and external advisor to the BBC, participated in the network's committees on various issues and concluded that it is built to deflect criticism rather than to improve. It's no coincidence that he investigated the same programs that came up in our report.
We provided quantitative data regarding BBC broadcasts, and he examined a series of specific cases that were handled scandalously.
Ultimately, it was precisely the case of splicing together two completely separate parts of Trump's speech that caused the major explosion of Prescott's memo. You could say our research essentially laid the foundations that led to his memo.
Your report was packed with details and about two hundred pages long. In retrospect, what was your most incriminating finding?
We discovered many problematic findings regarding the BBC's reporting in the first four months of the war, such as the number of times the term "war crimes" was attributed to Israel (129) versus the number of times it was attributed to Hamas (30).
Clearly, this is an illogical ratio. Or the number of times the phrase "breach of international law" was attributed to Israel (167) versus Hamas (27). But if I have to isolate the finding that most influenced the memo, it lies in the inconceivable gaps between the material broadcast on the BBC in English versus the material broadcast on the BBC Arabic.
We found major bias in the network's English broadcasts, but in Arabic, the bias was wild. The few stories about Israeli suffering that were broadcast on the English channel didn't reach BBC Arabic, including stories about hostages that were simply not broadcast at all.
We also discovered that people who celebrated October 7th and identified with Hamas were interviewed on the Arabic network hundreds of times, without proper disclosure regarding their position. In Prescott's words, BBC Arabic “gives extensive space to the views of Hamas”.
There were many studies on media outlets that reported unfairly on the Gaza war. Why do you think your research led to such a clear result?
First of all, the BBC isn't just another media outlet; it is the largest media outlet in the world, and a public broadcaster that every citizen in Britain is obligated to pay for. In fact, the BBC has a detailed charter, a contract it signed with the British public. We proved that the BBC violated the contract.
The research was actually conducted by two professional teams, one legal and one scientific. We tried to investigate both quantitatively and legally whether the BBC meets its commitment to provide impartial coverage.
The answer is no. The combination of understanding that there's a legal contract violation and the ability to analyze a huge amount of information is what led to a report that was received as the most thorough study ever done on BBC broadcasts.
And still - you're both Israelis. Doesn't that hurt the study's credibility?
That's exactly the point. We worked very hard so that the study couldn't be dismissed by saying we're Israelis. We described the entire way the research was conducted. We provided all the results in a reproducible manner.
If someone wants to prove we "lied" because we're Israelis, they have all the tools to repeat the research and see if they get different results. We built research tools based on large language models and artificial intelligence to produce findings that can't be dismissed, and that's exactly what happened.
Every scientist has an agenda and built-in biases. As an Israeli, I have an agenda. But as a scientist, I know how to fight that agenda. Once you manage to overcome the agenda with research that exposes the raw truth, that’s powerful.
The ability to neutralize your biases so they reflect the truth that can't be argued with, that's the power of our research. We live in an era of loss of truth, and people no longer consider facts because we're drowning in a flood of information. We no longer know whom to believe. That’s why serious research has tremendous power.
But you can manipulate research, too.
You can manipulate everything, and there's a temptation to manipulate everything in the post-truth era, but I believe in scientific truth and fairness. I don't think the BBC should support every message issued by the Israeli government.
Absolutely not. But I do expect fair coverage, especially from a media outlet that promises to provide impartial information. It's unacceptable, for example, that a week after the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, long before Israel even entered Gaza, BBC Arabic gave more space and sympathy to the Palestinian narrative than to the Israeli narrative.
BBC Arabic is supposed to be a tool for spreading British democratic values to the Arab world. But in practice, the opposite happened.
The BBC claims there's great overlap in articles between English and Arabic, and that's true, except for the fact that in Arabic, they only chose the articles that tell one side of the story, and any story that presented Israel in a slightly humane way was cast aside.
That's what the Asserson report exposed. Through profiling journalists and interviewees, we also discovered shocking statements and connections to Hamas. People who celebrated October 7th were interviewed there as if they were objective.
Another important point, BBC Arabic has reporters inside Gaza. This means they can't criticize Hamas even if they want to, because they'll literally have their heads cut off. But there was no proper disclosure of this fact, despite the legal obligation for proper disclosure.
What's the most important thing you learned from this entire process?
The most significant point is that when faced with the anti-Israeli tsunami, many Israelis think there's nothing we can do. But there is something we can do, and we've proven that serious work produces results.
We were a team of dozens of people, lawyers and researchers, who decided to contribute our skills during the terrible crisis that befell us as a country and as a people.
We worked for almost a year until the report was published. We made some headlines, but the question kept coming up - does this really matter if the BBC continues to do whatever it wants?
But a struggle against an organization like the BBC isn't something that yields results within two days. It's a giant body, Britain's number one brand, and a struggle that requires patience, precision, perseverance, stubbornness, and above all, sticking to the truth.
You can't defeat false narratives with other false narratives. It may take a little time, but in the end, truth wins.
You're essentially saying this isn't a battle of narratives, but a battle of truth against lies. So, how do we continue this battle now in the aspect of Israeli public diplomacy?
First of all, we must remember to stick to the truth. If you lose truth, it might be profitable in the short run, but eventually it will come back to haunt you.
It's also important to keep the discussion factual and emphasize reality and facts on the ground. So many disinformation campaigns present Israel negatively while ignoring the facts; we will win if we just manage to expose the facts.
And what do you think Trump should do about the BBC?
I think he should examine the matters seriously and, if necessary, take them on. I promise you that if he examines how they covered him versus Kamala Harris, for example, he'll have a very solid basis to go after them. I'm waiting for a phone call.