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BBC Finds Television Presenter Andrew Marr Guilty of Rules Breach over Anti-Israel Comments
(Mail on Sunday-UK) Chris Hastings - BBC bosses have found Andrew Marr guilty of breaching editorial guidelines with a "misleading" claim on his flagship Sunday news program that Israel had killed "lots of Palestinian kids." The Corporation's ruling against one of its most senior personalities is almost unprecedented. During the April 8 edition, Marr concluded a discussion of the Syrian regime's chemical weapons attack on civilians by saying: "There's lots of Palestinian kids being killed further south as well by Israeli forces." Anti-Semitism campaigner Jonathan Sacerdoti complained: "When talking about a story on the use of chemical weapons in Syria, Andrew Marr for some reason decided to talk about Israel....This is completely incorrect and is made up. This was irrelevant to the conversation on Syria...and also actually completely false." Fraser Steel, head of executive complaints at the BBC, wrote: "The BBC's guidelines require that output is 'well sourced' and 'based on sound evidence.' In the absence of any evidence to support the reference to 'lots' of children being killed at the time of transmission, it seems to us to have risked misleading audiences on a material point."