Last week, thousands of protestors lined the streets of central London. Demonstrators sat in at the BBC headquarters in Scotland. Both groups were protesting BBC’s refusal to air a video appeal for humanitarian relief in Gaza. The world’s largest news broadcaster made a controversial decision by not airing the Disasters Emergency Committee’s short, three-minute video requesting donations to relieve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The news station’s argument is that it cannot air the appeal for the sake of political impartiality. Political impartiality. That sounds like a reasonable rationale for a prominent news source like BBC. Millions of people around the world rely on its journalistic integrity to provide unbiased coverage of global events. But what about the 4,000 who have lost their homes due to heavy shelling? Or the 1.1 million that are dependent upon aid to survive? Electricity is not functioning in 75 percent of Gaza. Power outages mean that perishables cannot be refrigerated and shelf life is shortened. The region’s water and sewage system is run on electricity, and a health crisis can easily ensue from contaminated water. Health clinics are damaged and victims have nowhere to go. Casualties have already amounted on both sides of the conflict. More than 1,010 Palestinians have been killed, and 13 Israelis. 412 of those victims were children. Human suffering in Gaza is horrifying. Aid is imperative. That’s not a political stance. That’s a fact. Aid can only come with the help of humanitarian aid organizations and outside sources. These organizations are often underfunded and underrepresented, and the only way to change that is by gaining the generosity of the public through the media. That is why an aid appeal like the one put forth by the DEC is so important. In that sense, it is critical that news sources broadcast such appeals. What other way can we, students at Andover, learn of the dire situation in Gaza? After other news stations in the UK such as ITV and Channels 4 and 5 showed the short video, donations to the DEC doubled to £1 million. The video in question is not about punishing the bombers or liberating the people of Gaza from political oppression. Rather, it shows the real-life disaster occurring in the lives of the people of Gaza. The shock in their eyes as they return to the rubble and crumbled remains of what used to be their homes is no different than that of the Hurricane Katrina victims. So why does the BBC have a problem with airing the appeal? It has aired similar appeals for natural disaster relief and other national and global crises. One may argue that the nature of the conflict in Gaza is different, as the political situation is hanging by a thread. But news stations have aired similar appeals for the politically loaded humanitarian crises in Darfur and Congo. Of course, determining what’s unbiased can be a gray area in journalism, especially for a broadcaster with such a widespread influence as the BBC. But at the core of the matter, human suffering is human suffering, no matter where alliances lie. Furthermore, many of these victims are children, whose only fault was that they had the bad fortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. An appeal for donations to buy blankets, food parcels, medicine and basic human necessities is not a political statement. It is a moral one. The BBC has abandoned its most basic humanitarian values. Some prisoners of war are being treated by doctors and nurses behind enemy lines. These doctors are not doing so because they are on the side of the prisoners. They are doing so because they identify the need rather than the cause. People often get so lost in the mechanics of things, the facts and figures, that they lose sight of the essential. The public can distinguish between a call for support and a hazy partiality in a conflict. In not broadcasting the appeal, the BBC has already taken a side. They have chosen political “impartiality” over humanitarian need. That is unacceptable. Michelle Ma is a two-year Lower from Walnut, California. mma1@andover.edu
