BBC doubles down on its own 'fake news'

The BBC has doubled down on a "fake news" report in which it asserted President Trump made a false claim about Syrian refugees.

Leaders of the Barnabas Fund Christian ministry asked the U.K. broadcaster to correct a statement made by an announcer.

It was New York correspondent Nick Bryant who said, "In an interview with an evangelical television network [President Trump] claimed without any factual basis the old Obama policy favored Muslims over Christians."

Barnabas Fund pointed out that a 30-second Google search by the BBC "would have revealed not only the Barnabas Fund, but a number of news outlets that have been reporting during the past year that only 0.5 of 1 percent of Syrian refugees admitted to the USA last year were Christians."

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Published by WND Books, Jack Cashill’s “‘If I Had a Son’: Race, Guns, and the Railroading of George Zimmerman” examines the facts and exposes the bias of the news media in the racially charged case.

"This is despite them constituting up to 10 percent of Syria's pre-war population and [then-] U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry having accepted in March that they were facing genocide," the group said.

Responding to the concern, the BBC cited a Pew Center poll that shows "broadly equal numbers of Christians and Muslims being admitted in 2016 to the United States."

"This suggests that the very small percentage of Christian refugees coming to the U.S. from Syria is untypical."

Barnabas leaders said the comment was "profoundly misleading."

"Syrian refugees represent the world's largest current refugee crisis and the U.S. Secretary of State conceded last March that they were facing genocide. It is wholly unacceptable for the BBC to seek to defend its comment by excluding them from the analysis. This is simply a selective use of statistics," the organization said.

"Not only that, the context of the interview that Nick Bryant was commenting on – which is still available on the BBC website – was specifically about Syrian refugees."

The "sweeping" claim that there was "no factual basis" for the statement about Christians being disadvantaged, the ministry said, "was either taking sides … or denying that there is any debate."

The organization called the BBC's statement "a wholly false claim."

It followed Trump's comment about Syrian Christians.

"Yes, they have been horribly treated," he said. "Do you know if you were a Christian in Syria it was impossible, at least very, very tough to get into the United States. If you were a Muslim you could come in, but if you were a Christian it was almost impossible."

Not only is the claim by the BBC "untrue," but "it was also potentially damaging to tens of thousands of Syrian Christian refugees," the group said.

Barnabas Fund said that for nearly a year, major U.S. news networks such as Fox News and CNN have also reported on the refugee imbalance.

"The simple fact is that of 10,801 Syrian refugees admitted to the USA last year only 56 were Christians (there were also only 20 Shia and 17 Yazidis – the other two groups that John Kerry said were facing genocide), while 99 percent were Sunni Muslims," Barnabas Fund explained.

The group said these actions "are deeply irresponsible and wholly unjustified."

"False news statements need to be corrected immediately, particularly when they come from a broadcaster of such international standing as the BBC. This issue is particularly glaring as the BBC has just set itself up as a fact-checking unit to vet what it calls 'false news' posted on the Internet."

Published by WND Books, Jack Cashill’s “'If I Had a Son’: Race, Guns, and the Railroading of George Zimmerman” examines the facts and exposes the bias of the news media in the racially charged case.