Gaza journalists’ award withdrawal provokes outcry
JVL Introduction
Reaction from senior and respected media figures to cancellation of a Royal Television Society (RTS) Special Award for journalists in Gaza could mark a watershed moment in the sorry saga of institutional capitulation to pro-Israel lobbying. RTS was scheduled to make the award at a ceremony on March 25. News of a change of plan came after the Board of Deputies of British Jews said it had expressed disquiet to the RTS CEO.
A letter calling for the award to be reinstated has been signed by 325 TV and journalism professionals, including renowned names such as Jonathan Dimbleby and Lindsey Hilsum, and copied to King Charles, Royal Patron of the RTS, with request for a meeting. The story has been picked up by The Times under the headline “Jonathan Dimbleby calls Royal Television Society cowards over Gaza award.”
Such examples of cultural erasure are all too common, but opposition is building. The RTS row comes hard on the heels of huge outcry about the BBC pulling its documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, while the Guardian yesterday reported protests at the cancellation of a modern version of Midsummer Nights Dream at Manchester’s Royal Exchange theatre, apparently due to inclusion of the words “Free Palestine” in part of the performance.
Dare we hope that the tide is turning?
NWI
This article was originally published by Artists for Palestine UK on Wed 12 Mar 2025. Read the original here.
Leading Broadcasters Demand Reinstatement of Special Award Recognising Gaza Journalists
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Interestingly no member of the radio 4 Today team that I can see
The Board of Deputies should be strung up by the balls
We should all write a letter! Or JVL could write one and we all sign it! And that rabbi also needs to be flooded with letters from us. Shame on him. What a narrow-minded individual. I’m happy to get involved.
One of the more disturbing aspects of cultural change of the last decade or so, has been the way the status of the BoD has changed from that of a bunch of fundamentalist eccentrics, given the courtesy of occasional publication on a letters page, to an organisation of near official leverage and censorship privileges over the rest of society. How many other adherents of 19th C religious western colonial cults are remotely treated this way, in this day and age?
Outrageous. I really hope that the calibre, scope and detail of the protest letter will make a difference. It feels as if these decisions are constantly made behind closed doors. We need to know how this happened.
Agree wholeheartedly with comments made above regarding the Today programme and the new status of the BoD. Would add the new status of the grotesque ‘Campaign Against Antisemitism’ which the Chancellor actually dignified with a large donation of public funds in her very first Budget announcement. These nutters are now officially respected while the brave Gaza journalists are not to allowed be recognised even in death.