Channel 4 reaffirms support for anchor’s video blog, revealing that it prompted one child to write to UK defence secretary
Channel 4 has backed Jon Snow’s unusually direct and emotional online video about the Gaza conflict and revealed that it prompted one child to write to the UK defence secretary.
In the video, published on YouTube on Saturday and the Channel 4 News website the following day but not broadcast on TV, Snow speaks directly to camera about how what he saw in Gaza was “still etched in my mind” and appeals directly to viewers to take action to stop the conflict.
A viewer contacted Channel 4 to say that after watching Snow’s video on the children of Gaza her eight-year-old daughter had written to defence secretary Philip Hammond to express her concern.
“I think that it is sad that so many people in Gaza are being injured or dying, especially women and children. It’s our fault,” she wrote.
“We are killing the people of Gaza by giving Israel weapons. We need to take our part in it and stop giving Israel weapons or who knows how long this is going to go on for. I would appreciate it if you could talk to the government of Israel and try to stop this tragedy.”
The video, filmed in the Channel 4 News studio, is understood to have been shot on Friday after Snow returned to London from Gaza via Tel Aviv.
Snow spoke of his visit to Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital and the wounded children he had seen there, also quoting the official number of child casualties resulting from the conflict.
“That’s what makes this something that every one of us has to confront,” he said. “We have to know that in some way we share some responsibility for those deaths.”
Snow added: “We cannot let it go on… together we can make a difference.”
The video has notched up more than 1m views across various platforms, with more than 600,000 on the Channel 4 News YouTube channel alone.
A Channel 4 News spokeswoman said: “As part of our extensive coverage of the ongoing conflict, Jon Snow spent five days on the ground in Gaza witnessing for himself some of the harrowing events and human tragedies.
”He made this video blog for the Channel 4 News website after being deeply affected by what he saw first-hand. The feedback we have received has been overwhelmingly positive and we are extremely proud of the work our reporting teams have done and continue to do in very challenging conditions to cover this conflict.”
If the piece had been broadcast in a regular Channel 4 News bulletin on TV it may have fallen foul of media regulator Ofcom’s broadcasting code rules on due impartiality.
An Ofcom spokesman confirmed that the video fell outside its remit, as it had not been broadcast on linear TV.
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