Amidst all the furore about the decision by the management of the BBC not to show a charity appeal to help the homeless of Gaza, not many people are actually asking what the effect of their current actions is having on the BBC.
Their rationale is apparently that they do not wish to appear impartial lest (a) they actually endanger the lives of their people and (b) they, er, lose their global reputation for impartiality.
But what they don’t appear to see is that by taking this patently absurd stance — to show the appeal is not to take any stand on the rights or wrongs of the war but rather to help victims in a terrible situation (regardless of how they got to be there) — they positively appear to be siding with or sympathetic to one side, Israel.
But does that not precisely make them appear to have lost their impartiality anyway? And that is much more likely both to jeopardise the perceived impartiality of the BBC but also the lives of their journalists.
As one ex-BBC journo, Tim Llewellyn, said, the Corporation is a bunch of lions led by donkeys.
notsokrates 