BBC impartiality is dead, its own journalists say
JVL Introduction
Former BBC journalist Karishma Patel explains in the Guardian Opinion piece we publish below how she became “horrified at the contradiction between the ideals of our public broadcaster – accuracy, transparency, public trust – and its actions. Editorial caution had become editorial cowardice.”
She castigates the BBC for treating “Impartiality” as being “about PR, optics and managing the anger of certain groups, rather than following the evidence and championing robust journalism.”
Patel cites an open letter also reported in today’s Guardian, organised by a group of BBC insiders, accusing the corporation of being “crippled by the fear of being perceived as critical of the Israeli government.” It fingers Robbie Gibb, who has close ties with the vociferously anti-Palestinian Jewish Chronicle, as an inappropriate person to have a role on the BBC Board and BBC’s editorial standards committee.
Patel declares: “BBC impartiality is dead. The fiction that our public broadcaster can stay perfectly neutral, without being influenced, is fracturing around us.”
NWI
This article was originally published by The Guardian on Wed 2 Jul 2025. Read the original here.
Caution has turned to cowardice – the BBC is failing viewers with its Gaza coverage
The craven failure to broadcast Gaza: Doctors Under Attack is just the latest example of skewed journalistic values over Israel’s war
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Well-written Karishma Patel.
You speak for so many of us.
Your article exposes the corruption of our publicly-funded, public broadcaster.
Standing behind the BBC we can see the corruption of our national political institutions by the Israeli lobby.
We must ask why Kier Starmer’s cabinet is dominated by Labour Friends of Israel who continue to provide support for the ongoing genocide.
Karishma Patel’s article goes straight to the heart of the problem.
“Those at the top of the BBC now have a choice. They can once again ignore the alarm raised by their own journalists, and continue to chip away at the trust of audiences and staff. Or they can finally – after 20 months – listen”. Yes they have that choice but given the current makeup of the BBC top brass we all know by now how it will go. I despair at the direction my former employer has taken up. The BBC, a still respected (wrongly) broadcaster of integrity, has over the Gaza genocide hit a historic nadir.
Not only the BBC but is it not time also for the Labour Party, and the Guardian itself, to divest themselves of Jewish Chronicle and other right wing Israeli influencers?
Am I to understand that this documentary was on Channel 4 last night? I wonder what the viewing figures were, since hardly anyone knew it was on? I hope it will get a properly-trailed repeat showing. Sneaking it out on the sly like this is almost as bad as the BBC not showing it at all!
There are already positive results from Channel 4’s decision to show “Gaza:: Doctors Under Attack” and their Head of News & Current Affairs’ strong support for the quality of the film, its huge public importance and its compliance with national standards of good journalism. The ones I’ve picked up:-
– the two major “Guardian” articles and “5 stars” film review explaining to the public what Israel is really doing inside Gaza and how so much of the mainstream media has lied to them about it
– the R4 news coverage this lunchtime saying outright that Israel has targeted and killed medics possibly as a strategy to deny the Palestinians the healthcare they so desperately need. And the respectful coverage of individual Palestinian doctors (eg the cardiologist) working flat-out to save their patients in spite of their own family members being killed and injured around them. And the explanation many of these medical staff have been kidnapped and detained without charge by Israel and some have died under torture.
It’s all too little, too late – but at least it’s happening. And hopefully, many of those foul perpetrators of heinous war crimes will face prosecution within the next 10 years.
“Broadcasting Now”, a UK company measuring the audiences for different programmes reports that “Gaza: Doctors Under Attack” was watched by 260,000 Brits.
The programme reviews all seem very positive … hopefully that means the programme will be repeated at intervals (perhaps on other TV channels).
I’m greatly disappointed in the BBC and the “impartial” Zionist influence on its leadership.
The real question about “Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone” is not who the child’s father is, but was what was shown real, did it happen, was it exaggerated or was it the truth? For the BBC to remove the doc from iPlayer and then not to transmit “Gaza: Doctors under attack” on grounds of maintaining the BBC’s fictional impartiality has precisely the opposite result.
Impartial: my arse.