BBC staff: we're forced to do pro-Israel PR

Summary

This is a devastating intervention. More than a hundred BBC employees have written a letter to the director general, Tim Davie, complaining that the Corporation has become a mouthpiece for Israel.It was also signed by 300 other journalists and media professionals: one of them was yours truly. The BBC employees, as you would expect, are all anonymous, because otherwise they would face grave consequences to their careers.The letter says:We’re writing to express our concerns over opaque editorial decisions and censorship at the BBC on the reporting of Israel/Palestine. We believe the refusal to broadcast the documentary ‘Gaza: Medics Under Fire’ is just one in a long line of agenda driven decisions. It demonstrates, once again, that the BBC is not reporting “without fear or favour” when it comes to Israel.It goes on to note that the decision not to broadcast the investigation was taken by BBC management despite the content being signed off in accordance with BBC guidelines and editorial policy, which it says “Appears to be a political decision”, adding that the BBC response shows the organisation “is crippled by the fear of being perceived as critical of the Israeli government.”This is a letter which passed every single BBC internal check. No factual errors are alleged. The only other BBC documentary which focused on the apocalyptic plight of the Palestinian people in Gaza was taken down as a result of a hysterical pro-Israel campaign - because the father of the child narrator’s son had a junior technocratic position in the Hamas administration. Irrelevant, given the narrator’s words were written for him by the documentary producers.The letter emphasises that the signatories are not “asking the BBC to take a side”, but just to allow BBC journalists to “do their jobs in delivering facts transparently and with due context”. They note one striking failure:As an organisation we have not offered any significant analysis of the UK government's involvement in the war on Pales...