London, Jan 14, IRNA — UK news organisations are expressing their increasing frustration at Israel’s continuing ban on foreign correspondents from reporting the continuing massacre of nearly 1,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
David Mannion, editor-in-chief the ITV News, has branded the news blackout as “disgraceful” and has accused Israel of censoring the killings.
While pictures were coming out of Gaza from news agencies Reuters and Associated Press, having his crews stuck on the border meant events were increasingly difficult to verify, Mannion said.
“If Israel is saying that Hamas fired rockets from inside a school complex then let us in to verify that,” he was quoted saying by the Guardian newspaper Wednesday.
“It is frankly disgraceful for any democracy to prevent us from entering an area to report. It is up to us, not them, to decide if it is too dangerous to enter,” he said.
Channel 4 News, like other British broadcasters, have been similarly blocked from entering Gaza, but has been using a local Palestinian team of cameramen and producers to report on the effect of air strikes and killings in Gaza.
“I imagine that the Israelis are calculating that the longer they keep people out, the more interest will wane,” said Ben dePear, Channel 4 News foreign editor.
Dominic Wagthorn, Sky News Middle East correspondent, described the level of Israeli interference as being “unprecedented” in the region and said it was “very frustrating” after it had its reporters moved to a specially designated hill away from the attacks.
“The hill was full of experts and spokesmen from various Israeli departments and agencies. They are able to spin it. Meanwhile there is a terrible loss of life going on that we can’t cover. It’s very frustrating,” said Wagthorn.
Last week, Britain’s National Union of Journalists joined their international colleagues in condemning Israel’s news blackout on its continuing massacres of Palestinians in Gaza.
But according to the Guardian, the BBC’s head of world newsgathering, Jon Williams, says he is not convinced that Israel’s propaganda machinery has had any greater effect than normal.
“This is not like the Georgian-Russian conflict where they were putting waves of people forward. The Israeli government has always been smart and smooth about getting its message across,” Williams said.
“The trick is for us to then get other people in to make it fair and balanced,” he argued, even though protests in the UK have criticized the BBC coverage as being pro-Israeli.