Arab Media Watch
23 January 2009
Please complain to the BBC for blocking free prime-time TV airtime for a nationwide appeal for money to help “the desperate plight” of the people of Gaza. The appeal is from the Disasters Emergency Committee – made up of the 13 biggest aid charities, including the British Red Cross, Save the Children, Oxfam and Christian Aid – which said that “the devastation wrought in the Gazan territory was so huge that British aid agencies were compelled to act.”
“The broadcast would have highlighted the plight of thousands of victims, including many children, who are homeless and without food, power and water,” wrote social affairs correspondent Rosemary Bennett and Patrick Foster in the Times. “By convention, if all broadcasters do not agree to carry the appeal, none does.”
The BBC’s decision will leave aid agencies with “a potential shortfall of millions of pounds in donations,” wrote Jenny Percival in the Guardian, who described it as “a rare breach of an agreement dating to 1963.”
Update:
RAPID RESPONSE MEDIA ALERT: THE BBC REFUSES TO BROADCAST GAZA CHARITY APPEAL
Update:
This is the Gaza aid appeal the BBC and SKY refused to air
Please lodge your complaints, below is infomation i got off the web, thank you to the people who made the process simple that even I can follow the instructions…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/complaints_stage1.shtml
03700 100 222 option 3
Here is what I wrote:
I wish to complain about the BBC’s decision to not allow the DEC appeal for Gaza to go ahead. This is a very disgraceful decision and will cost lives on the ground. I do not buy the BBC’s official line that it affects its impartiality since this was not a concern for other similar appeals. I can only think that the BBC has succumbed to some external pressure from a foreign government. This is the BRITISH Broadcasting Corporation and as a license fee payer I am angry, annoyed and disgusted at this decision for which there is no conceivable reason. Could you please publish the minutes of the meeting in which this decision was made and why and I would like to know which of the directors/trustees decided against the DEC appeal?
EVERYONE I have spoken to, regardless of their ethnic or religious background, cannot understand this ludicrous and cruel decision, it would seem that the overwhelming majority of the BRITISH public do not agree with you. In fact I think it is safe to say that given this it is the BBC that is currently not acting impartially.
Yours angered, annoyed and disgusted.
Masud A. Khan
http://masudblog.com/?p=599