[Reith85]

I think thanks to the propaganda that comes with war we can't really say we even know now the actual facts around that case and we have a situation where governments are keen to follow the Israeli narrative whilst journalists jobs is to find the truth - although sometimes journalists work towards finding a pre-conceived idea of the truth that reaches the desired conclusion.   And of course us as news consumers will often sway towards the reports which back our own point of view too.

The BBC get criticised whatever they do and so far the complaint count sees to be 50/50 which suggests there is a balance there.

I agree. Despite the right-wing press going into a frenzy over the last 2 weeks about the BBC's guidelines re. how they refer to Hamas (ironically, the likes of the Daily Mail seem more interested in running front pages along the lines of "Atrocious BBC" on Thursday just gone, rather than reporting anything of substance on the Middle East), the fact that there have been protests against the BBC from both Jewish AND pro-Palestinian groups (it was a pro-Palestinian group that daubed the front entrance of NBH with red paint last week) suggests that the BBC, for all its faults, must be getting something right in terms of balance. 

Jonathan Munro, Deputy CEO of BBC News, apologised yesterday for Jon Donnison's speculation about the Gaza hospital incident, and talks about the balance issue in its Middle East reporting: pressgazette.co.uk