DEC - Are the BBC and Sky obliged?

A few topics to get us going....and let's start with this one. I don't stand quite where you might expect me to on this one.

The most valuable asset possessed by any broadcaster is its editorial independence. That means, quite simply, that the broadcaster chooses what to broadcast, and others do not. I've been in fundrasing long enough to remember when the DEC felt themselves very privileged to get BBC coverage for their appeals. Now, they demand it. Doesn't that smack a little of arrogance; the DEC is, after all, simply a group of charities, nothing more, nothing less?

I wonder if, perhaps, the root of this problem is that the DEC was ill-advised to choose Gaza as the subject of one of its appeals. The DEC was created as a non-competitive consortium of aid agencies, who would appeal together when a need arose that required immediate intervention, presented great financial need, and was too large to be dealt with by any individual agency. A major famine, a huge earthquake or other natural disaster - like the 2004 tsunami for example.

Terrible as the suffering is in Gaza, does it really fall into that category? Aid agencies are there already, they will continue to work there, and they probably have the capacity to each raise what they need to do so. The need may be great, but is it any greater than, for example the needs of children in Thailand, who are cared for by the Thai Childrens Trust , or are the abuses in Gaza worse than the ongoing horrors in Iran, Burma and Zimbabwe, where people are helped by Prisoners of Conscience (both of whom are Gilliland clients). Should they, too, therefore, be contacting the BBC and Sky and demanding airtime?

Indeed, it might be argued that by choosing this particular issue as a DEC appeal, the Committee naively put the BBC and Sky in an invidious position. It's pretty obvious that such an appeal will be seen by many to have a political context. In running it or not, the BBC and Sky were damned if they did and damned if they didn't.

In creating an appeal that the broadcasters felt they could not broadcast, the DEC have set a precedent. Previously, every DEC appeal was covered. Now one has been missed, so the obligation has broken. More than that, if I were the man at Auntie who has to decide on such things, I'd be feeling a good deal less well disposed towards the DEC than I was a week ago.

By choosing Gaza, have the DEC both devalued themselves, and made the coverage of the next, even greater, humanitarian need that much less likely?