He starts out with a long list of proof that the BBC is indeed biased in favor of the Palestinians. The list could have been a lot longer but Walker gives us some of the BBC's howlers. For a more indepth look, including the BBC's anti-Americanism, see here.
More importantly, in my mind, Walker exposes how the BBC were able to manipulate the study to get the results they wanted. In addition, there are some valid reasons why Israeli coverage might get more air time, even outside the small window of the report.
The methodology of the survey may be a complicating factor. The period analysed went from August 2005, the time of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and January 2005, when Ariel Sharon had his stroke and the Palestinians held their elections. The greater use of Israeli voices in this period seems reasonable when the big stories were the domestic political implications for the settler movement of the Gaza withdrawal and of Sharon’s eclipse. And given the media-wise presence of the Peace Now movement and Israel’s lively democracy, much of that nominally “Israeli” talk time would have been highly critical of the Sharon Government.
Moreover, the terms of reference of the report that the BBC governors commissioned excluded both the BBC World Service and the international TV channel BBC World, although it did include the BBC website. This excluded a large fraction of the BBC’s international coverage along with the often more detailed coverage that the World Service provides.
It is important to consider the context of the report’s finding that Israeli deaths tend to get more coverage is that the Israeli victims are overwhelmingly and deliberately civilians, targeted at random.
Walker goes on to describe the BBC's dismal handling of the "T" word.
After an otherwise great smackdown of the BBC, Walker ends with this howler.
It’s amazing that the coverage is as decent as it is, and that most of us in the business concede privately that, for all its flaws, the BBC still does a better job that any other news organisation on Earth.
The fact that Walker considers the BBC's coverage to be as "decent as it is", amazing, should tell you a lot about how others in the British media see the BBC.
As for his last sentence, since the BBC is seen around the world to be the voice of Britain, I think Walker was being just a little patriotic here. I doubt he would have written that if he had read this.
Still, it's great to see a UK newspaper as prestigious as The Times, giving the BBC a public smackdown it more than deserves.
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