BBC, Fox News in line of fire for embedding journalists with Israeli military in Lebanon

By Maryam Qarehgozlou

BBC has embedded its reporter Lucy Williamson with the Israeli military in southern Lebanon, where she has been brazenly peddling blatant lies and amplifying skewed narratives in the name of journalism.

“Israel’s ground invasion along this border last week was launched, it said, to destroy Hezbollah weapons and infrastructure in “limited, localized, targeted raids”,” Williamson reported for BBC website, justifying Israel’s aggression against a Lebanese village destructed by its relentless attacks.

Williamson’s reporting as an embedded journalist in the Israeli military has once again raised questions about the impartiality and objectivity of mainstream Western media outlets, like the BBC.

Activists say that Williamson’s coverage of the genocidal Israeli war on Lebanon in the past few weeks overlooks the plight of the Lebanese and the relentless violations of international law by the Israeli military, and instead focuses on portraying Israel as a victim.

Her reports, which echo the Israeli narrative, have been described as a deliberate attempt to mislead the public and shape international opinion in favor of the Israeli regime and its genocidal war.

In a statement released on Monday, Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah strongly condemned BBC for its “blatant bias” in favor of the Israeli regime and the breach of Lebanon’s sovereignty.

“The BBC, with all its platforms and in different languages, did not just blindly side with the murderers and criminals and justify the Zionist barbarism against the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples, but brazenly sent a team that entered a southern village accompanied by the occupation army and violated the sanctity of Lebanese territory, sovereignty, and applicable Lebanese laws, as shown by the reports published by this institution,” read the statement.

Hezbollah’s Media Relations condemned the “unjustified and absolutely unacceptable move” and urged the Ministry of Information, the National Media Council, and the relevant judicial and security agencies in the Arab country to “take the necessary legal measures against the BBC and its teams in Lebanon and protest to the BBC Company and the legal bodies representing it.”

It also called on the unions of journalists, editors, and free media outlets in the world to condemn the embedding of BBC and other journalists with Israeli occupation forces in Lebanon.

The Media Secretariat of the Lebanese Popular Conference also urged the Ministry of Information and the National Media Council “to halt the operations of the BBC team in Lebanon due to its cooperation with the Zionist enemy forces and its violation of Lebanese laws and national sovereignty.”

Pertinently, while the occupation army has faced heavy blows in its so-called "ground operation" in southern Lebanon, embedded journalists have tried to paint a rosy picture of it.

Violation of Lebanese sovereignty and laws

In a statement, it said, the BBC’s decision to send a journalistic team to enter one of the southern Lebanese villages accompanied by the Zionist occupation army constituted “a blatant and utterly unacceptable violation of Lebanese land, sovereignty, and applicable laws.”

It, too, called on relevant judicial and security authorities to “take necessary legal measures against this station and its teams in Lebanon, ban it from conducting media work in the country, and send a strongly worded protest to the BBC’s administration to prevent the recurrence of such an abhorrent action.”

On Monday, seven BBC Arabic employees, including Sanaa al-Khoury, Mohammad Hamdar, Marie-Josee Azzi, and Joy Slim, along with three others from the BBC Extra team, halted their work in protest against BBC’s reporting from south Lebanon, where reporters were embedded with the Israeli army.

The employees demanded an apology or accountability for the team involved in the report and stated that they would not return to work until their concerns were addressed.

“BBC correspondent Lucy Williamson embeds with the Israeli army as it illegally invades Southern Lebanon: “This is why the [Israeli] army says it’s here, not for occupation,” Williamson intones from inside a Lebanese village destroyed and occupied by the Israeli army,” Max Blumenthal, a US-based journalist, author and filmmaker wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

“BBC correspondent Lucy Williamson not only did cheap embedded journalism in her latest southern Lebanon story published 2 days ago, she also exposed her “colleagues” in other BBC offices to danger and to possible legal actions,” Lebanese novelist and writer Hilal Chouman wrote in a post on X.

Approximately 1.5 million people in Lebanon have been displaced following the Israeli aggression against the country that intensified on September 23.

The one-year-long Israeli onslaught in Lebanon which has escalated over the past weeks has killed close to 2,200 people with nearly 10,099 others injured, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

Media circus in Lebanon and restrictions in Gaza

Williamson was part of a group of journalists taken on a “promotional tour” organized by the Israeli military across the border from occupied Palestinian territories into south Lebanon on Sunday.

Other media networks such as The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Telegraph, Fox News, Reuters, The New York Times, The Financial Times, and the Associated Press also participated in this tour.

Israel has imposed blanket restrictions on journalists attempting to enter Gaza to document horrendous war crimes the regime has committed in the besieged territory since October last year.

Both international and Israeli reporters are barred from accessing the region unless they are escorted by the Israeli military, a decision that has drawn condemnation from global news organizations due to its negative implications for independent war coverage.

In Gaza, the Israeli regime has killed at least 175 Palestinian journalists over the past year, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Other monitoring groups have compiled far higher figures.

Rights groups report that the pattern of violence against media workers goes beyond incidental casualties of war, indicating a calculated effort by the Israeli military to suppress and intimidate journalists who seek to report on their genocidal actions.

Analysts say that the phenomenon of embedded journalism, as a countermeasure, has been weaponized by the Israeli regime to propagate disinformation and stigmatize resistance movements.

Numerous instances of non-Israeli Western journalists embedding with Israeli military forces in Lebanon and Gaza have surfaced in recent days in addition to BBC’s Williamson.

Trey Yingst, a Fox News journalist, has also come under scrutiny for his decision to embed with the Israeli military during the regime’s war in Lebanon, promoting fallacies.

In one of his stories for Fox News, he stated: “As Israeli forces started their ground operation into Lebanon, we were embedded with a commando unit that cleared a Hezbollah position.”

Role of journalists in war zones

His actions have raised serious ethical questions about the role of journalists in war zones and their potential complicity in promoting Israeli-sponsored narratives.

“We’ve seen this particular Fox News Journalist Trey Yingst also help amplify the occupation’s lies in Gaza. It goes beyond hypocrisy or journalistic malpractice, he is a willing tool of US imperialism and Zionism,” wrote Cedar Salvo, a pro-resistance activist, on X.

“CNN agreed to submit all footage to the IOF [Israeli occupation forces] for review. Fox News embeds itself with IOF and its CEOs meet with “Israeli” leaders. The NYT hires ex-IOF as writers. US mainstream media companies are collectively acting as state media outlets for the Zionist regime,” Salvo wrote in another post.

“Embedding with military forces inherently compromises a journalist’s ability to remain impartial and report objectively on a conflict. In the case of Trey Yingst, his decision to accompany Israeli troops not only undermines his credibility as an independent reporter but also tarnishes the integrity of journalism as a whole,” wrote another social media user.

Writer Jorge Martin also said by embedding journalists amid the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Western media outlets are acting more like propagandist tools for US imperialism rather than engaging in objective journalism.

“Fox News embedded in the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. CNN flying with Israeli planes attacking Yemen. Journalism or US imperialist propaganda mouthpieces?” he wrote.

Lebanese journalist and podcaster Rania Khalek said by parroting the Israeli military narrative and framing Hezbollah’s defensive measures as “evil,” these journalists contribute to a narrative that favors the Israeli perspective.

“All of the Western correspondents embedding with Israeli soldiers invading Lebanon helping them frame defensive weapons of Lebanon’s resistance that are meant for use against a lunatic settler state as something illogical and evil is interesting, to say the least,” she wrote on X.

Khalek questioned the ethics of reporters who participate in this practice, asking how they can reconcile their journalistic integrity with the act of aiding an invading force in promoting propaganda and justifying genocidal actions.

“How does it feel to embed with and do propaganda for a genocidal invading army?”

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir