BBC journalist resigns over ‘biased’ Middle East coverage

A veteran presenter has resigned from the BBC over the British broadcaster’s “biased” coverage of the Syrian war.

Syrian journalist Dima Izzedin, who has been with the BBC for eight years, said her decision was based on the media outlet’s stance towards her home country.

“Today I was supposed to go back to the BBC screen after an absence of a year but I will no longer go back,” she wrote on Facebook, according to the New Arab news site.

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“The standards adopted by this great institution are supposed to make it first class in media, but this is not the case,” she added.

Izzedin said she was grateful for her experiences, but questioned the broadcaster’s standards for impartiality.

“Unfortunately, these standards are no longer applied as it should be .... today I leave it [the BBC], as it is no longer like me nor am I like it. The news on my wounded homeland departed us.”

Supporters of Syrian rebels have accused the media organization of sympathetic language towards President Bashar Assad’s government.

They accused Damascus-based BBC Arabic Syria correspondent Assaf Aboud of “propaganda” for reporting from the capital and of not being able to report truthfully or impartially under the control of Assad, the New Arab reported.

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The BBC has been accused of biased coverage on the Israel-Palestine conflict from both sides of the spectrum. Michael Grade, former chairman of the broadcaster claimed that the BBC “directly misled” viewers on a report about stabbing attacks on Israelis by allegedly failing to show Palestinian groups praising the attacks last year.

On the other side, pro-Palestine groups and the late Labour politician Tony Benn criticized the BBC for violating its principles by refusing to broadcast a humanitarian appeal for Gaza following the late 2008 war.