The BBC's ‘ultimate humiliation' on Gaza

Telegraph

16 hours ago

Tonight, Channel 4 will broadcast a hard-hitting documentary about Gaza. The hour-long film, Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, examines allegations that the Israeli military has breached international law by deliberately targeting hospitals during the conflict that started on October 7, 2023. It features interviews with medics working in the besieged territory and is billed as a 'forensic investigation'.
None of which sounds particularly unusual: Channel 4 has always aired long-form factual programming about difficult subjects and has won a clutch of awards for its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.
This documentary is almost unique, however, as it was originally commissioned by and made for the BBC, whose bosses then dropped it amid the fallout of another Gaza film that was narrated by the 13-year-old son of a Hamas official.
Months of delays and recrimination ensued, with the independent producers behind Doctors Under Attack sparking a public war of words with the BBC. The situation is practically unheard of, and threatens to heap further embarrassment on BBC bosses after their botched handling of events at Glastonbury last weekend, as well as further dividing an already-fractured newsroom about how to cover the Middle East.
Doctors Under Attack was meant to be broadcast at the start of the year, according to insiders, but was superseded by Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone. The latter was broadcast in February but was pulled from the BBC iPlayer shortly afterwards, after it emerged that its 13-year-old narrator, Abdullah al-Yazouri, was the son of the deputy minister of agriculture. The Telegraph has previously reported that Deborah Turness, the chief executive of BBC News, saw the film before it aired but did not raise concerns about it.
BBC chairman Samir Shah said the film's failings were a 'dagger to the heart' of the Corporation's claims to be trustworthy and impartial. Peter Johnston, the BBC's director of editorial complaints, was tasked with establishing what went wrong and making recommendations for future programmes. Despite the promise that Johnston, who is paid £200,000 each year, would 'rapidly address the complaints that have been made', his report has yet to see the light of day more than four months on.
The feet-dragging caused frustration for those working at Basement Films, the independent production company behind the Doctors Under Attack documentary. Sources say that BBC bosses maintained for weeks that they had not delayed broadcast of the film because of the scandal sparked by its predecessor, which was made by a different production company, then changed tack and said it could not be aired while Johnston's report was outstanding. They feel that Corporation executives 'lied repeatedly' about the delays in releasing Doctors Under Attack and that the atmosphere had become 'absolutely toxic'.
The delays led to the doctors who had been interviewed threatening to withdraw their consent for their footage to be used, as they could not understand why it had not been shown. During this period of limbo, more medics were killed in strikes on Gaza hospitals.
Those involved with the film also say that the BBC found no editorial issues with Doctors Under Attack and were confident that it would comply with broadcasting regulations, but that bosses were now paranoid about any coverage of Gaza. BBC insiders counter this and say that the film had not been subject to its pre-broadcast sign-off processes. 'Any film broadcast will not be a BBC film.'
Basement Films founder Ben de Pear, who is a former editor of Channel 4 News, lashed out publicly during a panel discussion at an industry conference on June 19. 'All the decisions about our film were not taken by journalists, they were taken by Tim Davie. He is just a PR person,' he said on stage. 'Tim Davie is taking editorial decisions which, frankly, he is not capable of making.'
Davie has not got a background in journalism or programme-making and is nicknamed by some in Broadcasting House 'Lord Pepsi' for his background in cola adverts. De Pear went on to say that the BBC is 'failing as an institution' and 'needs new management'.
'The BBC has utterly failed,' he added. 'The best journalists in the world are working inside the BBC and they are being stymied and silenced.' A BBC spokesperson said in response that it 'totally reject[ed] this characterisation of our coverage'.
On the same day that de Pear let his frustration spill into the open, Ramita Navai, the film's presenter, appeared as a guest on Radio 4's Today programme on the previous day and discussed the ongoing conflict in Gaza. 'The world has been watching as Israel has become a rogue state that is committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing and mass-murdering Palestinians,' she told presenter Amol Rajan.
The following day, June 20, the BBC formally dropped the film, saying that 'broadcasting this material risked creating a perception of partiality' and, despite negotiations with Basement about using some footage in its news bulletins, they had 'reached the end of the road'. BBC insiders claimed that it was no coincidence that the final decision to drop Doctors Under Attack came after the outbursts from Navai and De Pear.
Channel 4 saw the opportunity to swoop. 'Having the chance to pick up an important bit of accountability journalism seemed worth a look,' as one insider puts it. It has been subjected to 'rigorous' fact-checking and it is understood that the broadcaster has not asked for any 'substantive edits' to be made.
Those at Channel 4 find the BBC's unwillingness to air Doctors Under Attack puzzling, especially as news executives did not appear to have any issues with its content. 'We've got to keep making decisions on journalistic grounds,' says a source. 'The moment you start making decisions that are not purely journalistic, it's problematic.' Another source says: 'We cannot not report on what is happening in Gaza at such a pivotal time.'
Channel 4 bosses are braced for questions about Navai's personal statements about Israel after the film has been broadcast, but are confident that it complies with the impartiality requirements that regulators enforce. 'I'm sure there will be questions raised about Ramita, and my response to any of those is, 'Watch the film',' says a source. 'If you can find anything in that film is partial or inaccurate, that's a fair criticism. But trying to discredit the people associated with it is a diversionary approach.'
It is understood that the BBC has paid Basement Films for its work on the commissioned documentary, while Channel 4 has paid to air it; nobody involved in making or broadcasting Doctors Under Fire would confirm how much it cost, however. 'No-one is making any money out of it,' according to one Channel 4 source.
Meanwhile, morale in the BBC newsroom is reportedly at a low ebb. More than 100 BBC staffers have (anonymously) signed a letter to Corporation bosses in which they claim that it has become a mouthpiece for the Israeli government and express 'concerns over opaque editorial decisions and censorship… on the reporting of Israel/Palestine'.
The fact that the BBC dropped a film that will now be broadcast on Channel 4 was the spark for the letter being publicly released. 'This appears to be a political decision and is not reflective of the journalism in the film,' it reads. 'This illustrates precisely what many of us have experienced first hand: an organisation that is crippled by the fear of being perceived as critical of the Israeli government.'
The letter continues: 'All too often it has felt that the BBC has been performing PR for the Israeli government and military. This should be a cause of great shame and concern for everyone at the BBC.'
Dorothy Byrne, a former head of news and current affairs at Channel 4, says that the broadcast of Doctors Under Attack on the commercial station would be 'the ultimate humiliation' for the BBC. 'I assume that the first film has made them lose their bottle and confidence,' she says.
'The BBC is now in the ridiculous situation over Gaza that it has broadcast a film that it shouldn't have broadcast in that form... and not broadcasting a film that it should have because another public service broadcaster, bound by the same regulations, has made the decision to broadcast it,' Byrne tells me.
'How do they always get themselves in a mess? They are like the Laurel and Hardy of broadcasting: something always seems to go wrong,' Byrne says of the BBC. 'And yet you've got brilliant people like Jeremy Bowen and Lyse Doucet. I really feel for the brilliant journalists who work for the BBC, who must feel embarrassed and humiliated when these things happen.'