The international development secretary Douglas Alexander yesterday rebuked the public service broadcasters who have declined to air the emergency Gaza appeal from Britain’s Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC).
The BBC is a public service funded broadcaster, and has to remain scrupulously objective. The BBC, along with ITV and Sky, declined to broadcast the humanitarian appeal for Gaza in order to avoid losing public confidence in its impartiality.
A BBC spokesperson said: “The decision was made because of question marks about the delivery of aid in a volatile situation and also to avoid any risk of compromising public confidence in the BBC’s impartiality in the context of [a] news story.”
The DEC umbrellas 13 other NGOs and charities, all working to get aid into Gaza, in an attempt to save lives being lost in an extremely complicated conflict. Alexander maintained that ‘the support of broadcasters is highly effective and extremely valued by the group of charities and NGOs who provide humanitarian relief under the DEC umbrella’
You can watch the appeal here, and join the debate to express your own opinion. Does the BBC have to remain impartial when it comes to appeals? Or is this simply a humanitarian issue that needs as much attention as possible?
You can donate and find out more about the DEC and the alliance of the UK’s leading aid charities it brings together on the DEC website.
