IT seems as though the criticism around the BBC’s coverage of Israel and Gaza is getting louder every week. On Monday, I spoke to a senior journalist who works for the World Service to find out more about how staff are feeling.
Last week, the BBC decided to announce it would no longer be streaming “high-risk” shows at Glastonbury after being called out for broadcasting a Bob Vylan set which featured the frontman leading the crowd in an anti-IDF chant. This led to journalists calling the corporation “censorious” and “cowardly”.
A documentary on the destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system was also shown last week on Channel 4 after the BBC had opted not to air it, following concerns it may create “a perception of partiality that would not meet the high standards that the public rightly expect”. This was despite the fact the BBC commissioned the documentary, which was produced by Basement Films.
The BBC World Service journalist – who wished to remain anonymous – said the move made on the Gaza: Doctors Under Attack documentary in particular “crossed a new line”, with reporters and staff working for the broadcaster reaching boiling point over the “struggle” that seems to exist in trying to fight for in-depth and truthful coverage of Palestine.
Having worked for the BBC for nearly a decade, the journalist said he has increasingly witnessed bosses over the past year “buckling to pressure” from political powers over Israel and Gaza, and he now feels the BBC is “bending over all the time to defend the wrong people” with an “Israel-first” approach.
As a journalist, you feel it is your raison d’etre to tell the truth and fight whatever powers that be to make sure people know the truth.
But the journalist detailed to me how difficult this is becoming at the BBC when it comes to Israel and Palestine news.
“The bar that they set for every single tiny detail is so much higher [for Palestine stories] than if you were to make a piece about October 7 and you were interviewing Israelis about what happened then,” he told The National.
“For me, there is always the scope to be making brilliant work on Palestine within the BBC but it’s just a struggle.
He went on: “News really struggles, I think, to frame it [Israel/Gaza] in a way that’s truthful. We have very much an Israel-first approach.
“Whatever airstrike happens and kills 60 people, it’s always ‘what do Israel say about why they did it or who they were targeting?’. As long as Israel keeps saying that it doesn’t ever target civilians, that’s how we frame them.
“But at what point do we take more notice of what they do, rather than what they say?”
The dropping of Gaza: Doctors Under Attack by the BBC came fresh off the back of controversy over the How to Survive a Warzone documentary – a programme the BBC removed from iPlayer after it was revealed it featured the son of a Hamas official.
The BBC argued the film couldn’t go out while a review into the How to Survive a Warzone documentary was going on.
Speaking about how Gaza: Doctors Under Attack was binned, the journalist said he believed director-general Tim Davie and BBC News CEO Deborah Turness were constantly “buckling to political pressure” and airing the documentary would have helped to boost their reputation at a time when it is waning.
“With this medics doc [Gaza: Doctors Under Attack], that was, for me, a new line that was crossed,” he said.
He went on: “Tim [Davie] and Deborah [Turness] are constantly buckling to pressure.
“The ironic thing is they do it to avoid bad headlines, but the headlines that have been created by censoring and blocking an absolute vital documentary about Gaza’s healthcare system being demolished [are so bad], they’ve created a worse situation for themselves.
“If they had the courage to stand up to those pressures and say we’re going to put this out because it’s true – it’s not about being impartial, it’s the truth – then they would be in a better position.
“The BBC is such a respected institution – increasingly less so – but they would have gained some respect back."
He went on: “The BBC seems out of touch on this [Israel/Gaza]. It seems like it’s bending over all the time to defend the wrong people, it’s bending over backwards to do PR for a foreign army that is committing atrocities."
Last week, more than 100 BBC journalists called for Robbie Gibb, the controversial BBC board member for England, to be removed from the role over his impact on the broadcaster’s reporting.
Gibb’s position on the BBC editorial standards committee is “untenable” as his well-known political affiliations mean the BBC is not reporting on Israel “without fear or favour”, a letter co-ordinated by BBC insiders says.
Gibb, who was Theresa May’s director of communications in No 10 and an early editorial adviser to the alt-right broadcaster GB News, led the buy-out of the Jewish Chronicle in 2020 and remained a director of Jewish Chronicle Media until August 2024.
In a collaboration with Declassified UK, The National revealed on Monday how the UK mainstream media have not carried out a single investigation into the extent, impact or legal status of the more than 500 surveillance flights over Gaza the RAF has carried out since December 2023.
Asked why he thought the BBC hadn’t looked into the matter, the journalist said he did not believe there were enough tenacious staff members willing to pursue such a story that could cause them grief.
“It’s a massive organisation full of individuals and you need individuals that pitch it and have the tenacity to fight for the story and you need it to get green lit by a brave editor, though they shouldn't have to be brave,” he said.
"So if you don’t have those individuals pushing for it, it’s not going to appear out of thin air. At the moment, I don’t think there are enough people like that at the BBC who are willing to put their neck on the line and do stories that are going to cause themselves grief and their editors' grief."
A BBC spokesperson said: “Throughout our impartial reporting on the conflict we have made clear the devastating human cost to civilians living in Gaza. We will continue to give careful thought to how we do this.
“We believe it is imperative that our journalists have access to Gaza, and we continue to call on the Israeli government to grant this.”
